Anna Mae Carman

For more than eight years, Anna Mae Carman was part of our student body. During her time, she became involved in music, sports, theater, AP classes, and more. Her time introduced obstacles yet also prepared her for her current life at Cedarville University.

While Anna Mae was born in Beijing, she returned to the U.S. with her family at a young age and, during her fourth grade, transferred to Tianjin. She shares the transition was quite challenging due to more demanding courses in mathematics, larger classes, and difficulty pronouncing her peers’ names.

Further, the changing community led to hardships of gaining and losing friends. “I had one really good friend from fourth grade, and then she left after ninth grade; and so, then I became really close with somebody else, but then, they left after eleventh grade; and then, I got really close with my classmates in tenth grade, and I was definitely closer with them then than I was before.” She says in this community, “it’s a lot of come and go, and I kind of just made friends with who’s there, and I made a really good friend with somebody who I never thought I would.”

Even with its challenges, her time here offered positive and memorable experiences. She recalls the impact of the Yunnan service trip where she helped local farmers; and with a drive for music, she was excited to join band and choir. These musical disciplines provided opportunities to showcase her talents in concerts, as a lead for Jazz Band, in the annual LifePlus Fine Arts Festivals, and in the external choir of AMIS. For her service project, she fostered the love of music in others by teaching younger students. The culmination of her drive in music ultimately led her to receive the Patrick S. Gilmore Band Award.

All these moments of challenge and memory have prepared her for university, and she recognizes the benefits. “It was academically rigorous, and so now, I feel like college is easy,” she says. “Living overseas, in general, helps make you really adaptable and good at moving into new places and getting comfortable with it quickly.”

Anna Mae is now majoring in Music Education and aspires to receive a Master’s in conducting. Her dream job is to conduct a university band or an orchestra. While she plays horn, violin, and piano, she looks forward to studying new instruments in upcoming courses. She offers the advice to our current students to “get involved as much as you can. That’s kind of what I did. It adds more stress, but I think those are the more memorable things.”

Thank you, Anna Mae, for returning to our campus! We are cheering you on and look forward to one day attending a concert conducted by you.