Personal responsibility in college student development

Personal Responsibility in College

The Significance of Personal Responsibility in College

Academic success in college is, naturally, largely a function of academic aptitude and talent. But there are other factors that may be even more important than innate intellectual ability. Consider that the vast majority of college students who are neither at the very top not at the very bottom of the range of academic ability (Gordon, Habley, & Grites, 2008). Those in the top few percentiles are so naturally gifted as students that they may not necessarily have to be particularly responsible to achieve success. Some of them may, in fact, be considerably irresponsible, yet their ability allows them to get away with it. The bottom few percentile may have too little natural intellectual ability to excel at some area of academic study. In theory, they could improve their academic performance by developing disciplined study habits, but in reality, the lowest performing percentile in academics are almost always also least likely students to be willing or able to make the commitment to personal responsibility, especially in the academic realm (Gordon, Habley, & Grites, 2008).

For the vast majority of college students who are not close to either far end of the academic performance spectrum, personal responsibility can make all the difference between academic success and failure (Gordon, Habley, & Grites, 2008). In principle, one could make the argument that there are six principal components of self-responsibility in college students: (1) Prioritizing Commitments, (2) Time Management, (3) Purposefulness, (4) Moral Development, (5) Public Image Management, and (6) Financial responsibility. The first emphasizes establishing an appropriate balance of all interests and obligations. The second relates to conscious planning but must carry through to implementation. Planning is the easy part; planning realistically and adapting proactively to difficulty in implementation is the harder part. The third is a general perspective that corresponds to seriousness and expense of matriculating in an institution of higher learning by choice and simply means maintaining an appropriate awareness of what one's reason is for being in college. The fourth means that college is a place for developing patterns of personal relationships with others that are moral and ethical. The fifth is a function of the interconnectedness of modern digital communications media. One only has to Google one's self or check one's Facebook to see the first impression we are building upon that our potential future employers will probably see of us before they meet us in person. The sixth is a reflection of the importance of establishing good credit and good financial habits, including an appropriate appreciation of how important it will be to repay college loans in a responsible and timely fashion.

Plan to Incorporate Effective Strategies for Academic Success

Prioritizing Commitments, Time Management, and Purposefulness

The sheer number of possible interests that can be pursued in college offers tremendous opportunity but also potential conflicts with optimal academic performance (College@Home, 2011; Lucier, 2008). It is very easy to over-commit to too many obligations and to allow them to encroach on our primary reason for being in school. In that respect, the concept of purposefulness works together because it provides the reason for prioritizing various interests with academic performance at the top (College@Home, 2011; Lucier, 2008). This is one challenge that I intend to be as mindful about as possible because I already know that it is very easy to allow other commitments and interests to interfere with academic responsibilities.

Time management responsibility is largely about recognizing unrealistic or impractical scheduling and planning and then adapting our schedules and plans appropriately afterwards. It would be more unusual than usual for college students, especially first-year students, to be able to accomplish everything that one plans to do in advance. What is much more important than whether or not one's initial planning proves to be effective is whether or not one takes the initiative to plan more realistically as soon as time constraints and conflicts reveal themselves (Lucier, 2008).

Another way of looking at it is that whenever there is not enough time to do everything one plans in college, the first casualty is academic responsibility. Typically, the first year of college is also the first experience that incoming students have ever been completely self-responsible (Lucier, 2008). Very often, with no parents or authority figures to answer to, college freshmen develop irresponsible habits. Magical thinking takes over and the student "plans" to write a paper in two-week, then one week, then four day, then in two days, and then ends up staying awake all night before it is due and requesting an extension that day. My plan is to be responsible with respect to prioritizing my commitments appropriately, managing my time realistically and effectively, and maintaining a general overall sense of purposefulness to help me in both of those respects.

Moral Development

The typical college student spends the first four years of adulthood in an academic institutional environment (Folsom, 2008). That means college students have a responsibility to develop as human beings as well as academics. Ideally, college students should learn fundamental understanding of ethical issues and how to recognize objective values and the respective rights and sensibilities of others (Folsom, 2008). By the time college graduates start their first jobs, they should already have a foundation of self-responsibility in the moral realm and they should be able to recognize and respond appropriately to ethical conflicts that may arise. My plan includes being mindful of the practical implications of the ethical principles that I study in various courses.

Public Image Management and Financial responsibility

Today, college graduates must understand that there is no longer any appreciable difference between public and private life. The Internet is a fantastic convenience but it also preserves a digital record of everything we publish on it. In their interactions with peers online, they must understand that their future prospective employers will probably be checking all of the typical social media in conjunction with their employment applications. My plan is to manage the public image that I create in the virtual medium so that nothing future interviewers may view will undermine my vocational aspirations.