College Student Development

The college atmosphere plays an integral role in the social development of students. As per the college student development theory (CSDT), college significantly contributes to students' academic, cognitive, social, psychological, as well as spiritual and moral development (Patton et al., 2016). Indeed, CSDT provides student affairs practitioners with a solid foundation for practice. More specifically, given the widespread prevalence of development-related issues in colleges, such as attrition, violence, suicide, and drug abuse, CSDT to a large extent guides and informs the work of community college counsellors.

In this essay, I illustrate my personal knowledge, skills, and dispositions regarding my role as an outreach community college counsellor. I also compare and contrast CSDT and practice. I particularly pay attention to key developmental moments in my undergraduate education, the connection between these moments and CSDT, as well as my current comfort level in terms of applying CSDT to students. Going through college exposes one to a wide array of experiences that shape not only their academic learning, but also their mental and psychosocial development.

Personally, numerous events in the course of my undergraduate education shaped my development in diverse ways, both positively and negatively. One important way through which college influenced my development as a person is by improving my social skills. This was indeed a key development moment for me. Though I am naturally a people person, my entire college years were a defining phase for me as far as my interpersonal skills are concerned. Ordinarily, college entails a great deal of group work. Students are often required to undertake assignment in groups.

For me, group work provided an opportunity to not only work alongside others, but also meet different people. I interacted with people from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds and with different personalities, preferences, beliefs, and worldviews. It was an opportunity to learn their likes and dislikes, and to see the world from a somewhat different perspective. I strongly believe this made me a better person in terms of communicating and interacting with individuals that are different from me. I am now able to think past common stereotypes and perceptions.

I was exposed to interaction with people from diverse backgrounds through not only mandated group assignments, but also extra-curricular activities. While in college, one does not just attend classes; they get an opportunity to take part in games, outdoor activities, cultural activities, clubs, associations, as well as workshops and seminars. These activities bring together people with shared aspirations, ideas, goals, and objectives. They also provide valuable opportunities for social development.

While in college, I played basketball, was a member of the swimming club, and enjoyed sports competitions, cultural events, and theatre performances. These events introduced me to new friends, and were the ideal way of spending my leisure time. This substantially influenced my social development. Social development is a crucial element of college student development (Patton et al., 2016). As a result of college learning, one often experiences substantial interpersonal changes. They interact with people from diverse backgrounds and with diverse personalities.

Learning to be sociable and to effectively interact with everyone regardless of their background is vital for thriving in such an environment. For me, becoming a more sociable person has had important implications for my practice as a community college counsellor. Counselling is indeed a field that requires one to be interactive, understanding, considerate, and an effective listener. Therefore, there is a strong link between CSDT and my social experiences while in college. My social experiences in college particularly relate to CSDT from the perspective of social identity.

Social identity theory asserts that different groups within the society have different identities shaped in large part by a country's social-historical context (Patton et al., 2016). These identities manifest along the lines of race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, political inclination, personality, and so forth. Understanding these identities is particularly crucial as colleges increasingly enrol students from diverse backgrounds. In college, it is not uncommon to notice social identities. Students will often group themselves in categories of shared background and characteristics.

For instance, an apparent illustration is the inclination of African-American students to socialise more with their African-American peers than other social groupings. A community counsellor must understand these identities if they are to effectively execute their roles and responsibilities (Patton et al., 2016). Whereas CSDT considerably informs the work of community college counsellors and other student affairs professionals, its application in practice may not be as straightforward as believed by some. Indeed, as not noted by Patton et al.

(2016), the multiplicity of models within CSDT makes it quite difficult for student affairs professionals to choose the most appropriate model. This complexity is further compounded by the diversity of student needs and experiences. College counsellors are involved in not only psychological counselling, mental therapy, and social support, but also academic development. They provide these services to students from diverse backgrounds and with different concerns. Choosing the most appropriate CSDT theory amidst such complexity can be difficult.

I would describe my level of comfort in terms of applying CSDT to students as moderate. I must admit that at times I find it easier to use intuition or informal theories, and it works well on many instances. As an individual, I strongly believe I have my own implicit interpretations of people, events, and experiences. Rather than resorting to a bunch of confusing theories, I usually rely on implicit connections.

For example, when a student comes to me in need of assistance with a certain issue in their personal or social life, I will usually resort to common knowledge, or even my own experiences or experiences of other people I have observed going through the same. Even so, I do not underestimate of role of CDST in the work of outreach community college counsellors. I have particularly found psychosocial theories useful in making sense of student behaviour.

While informal theory can be effective in some cases, better outcomes can be achieved when formal theory is used (Patton et al., 2016). Enhancing my skills as far as the application of theory into practice is concerned is an area I particularly need to work on. Theory expands our interpretation of the world around us, and its relevance in practice cannot be overemphasised. It facilitates our understanding of the relationship between variables, assessment of practice, as well as the creation of new knowledge (Patton et al., 2016).

For instance, CSDT provides a better understanding of student behaviour, enabling the counsellor provide more objective assistance to students. In essence, implicit connections may not always be accurate, further justifying the need for full integration of theory and research into practice. I plan to advance skills in the area of incorporating theory into practice by being more inquisitive of CSDT. As mentioned previously, the plethora of CSDT presents a major difficulty in terms of choosing the most appropriate and relevant model. This challenge according to Patton et al.

(2016) can be overcome by engaging in greater evaluation of CSDT theory. Clearly, not every theory is relevant to student affairs professionals in the practice setting. Gauging the appropriateness of a theory should be guided by: comprehensiveness (does the theory explain a broad variety of behaviour); clarity and explicitness (does the theory account for relationships in a precise manner); parsimony (does the theory provide.