Personal Responsibility and College Success: A Student Guide

Introduction: Personal Responsibility and College Success

Although not everyone pursues a college education, personal responsibility and education are deeply connected. A person must develop good values, follow sound principles, and practice effective time management in order to achieve personal goals that lead to a successful life. Self-discipline, respect for oneself and others, loyalty, and compassion are central elements that foster personal and social responsibility on college campuses. This paper introduces these elements and, in doing so, develops a preliminary plan for practicing personal responsibility in college education.

Taking personal responsibility is essential for all development and learning, but it is especially important in college. There are three reasons for this. First, research has shown that college outcomes are tied to a very high degree to the efforts students invest in their studies and campus life in general. Second, irresponsible students can damage the academic ethos, pushing campus culture toward the non-intellectual and divisive. Third, the habits of personal and civic responsibility take shape during college and will significantly affect students' chances of success in their later professional lives (Davis & Murrell, 2003, p. 1).

Personal responsibility means the freedom to make choices and the willingness to be accountable for one's own actions. It requires a strong commitment to both oneself and the college community. Personal responsibility and college success are two sides of the same coin: learning to grow academically by changing oneself, one's perspectives, and one's assumptions. Achieving personal responsibility at college has many facets: the ability to practice honesty, to socialize and participate in teamwork, the development of communication skills, personal interests, morals, rules, self-respect, time management, and goal setting. This requires awareness of one's resources, strengths, and weaknesses, as well as the courage and perseverance to address one's deficits.

Honesty, Accountability, and Perseverance

Personal responsibility in every area of life is closely related to being honest with oneself. It is of no help in one's personal development to simply believe whatever one thinks or would like to believe about oneself. For example, a lazy college student who takes comfort in the idea that other equally lazy students still manage to succeed is doing himself no good. Those other students may be faster learners, or they may simply have been lucky. As Sullivan points out, "Just because [someone] believe[s] something is true doesn't mean it is" (Sullivan, 2011, p. 27). Making excuses or blaming other people and circumstances for what is going wrong in one's own life is the exact opposite of accepting personal responsibility. People have a tendency to form habits, and if they fall into the habit of making excuses rather than being honest with themselves, they simultaneously fall into the habit of evading personal responsibility (Tracy, 2011, p. 2).

Closely linked to honesty is the willingness to take accountability for one's actions. Creating excuses stands in direct contrast to accepting personal responsibility. Davis and Murrell very rightly emphasize that colleges are "learning communities, and individuals accepted into these communities have the privileges and responsibilities of membership" (2003, p. 1). One of those responsibilities is to stand by one's failures rather than blaming other people or circumstances. It is human to make mistakes, but one should admit when an action was wrong. Viewed as a learning experience, a mistake can be turned into something valuable. Understanding and accepting personal deficits is the first step toward improving them and toward actively developing personal responsibility.

Sullivan rightly stresses that taking personal responsibility—for example, "learning to walk requires perseverance and determination" (Sullivan, 2011, p. 27). We must take responsibility for our lives rather than waiting for someone else or some fortunate coincidence to fix things for us (Sullivan, 2011). Personal and academic development requires a genuine investment of time and effort by the student (Davis & Murrell, 2003, p. 1). It takes sustained energy and endurance to cultivate personal responsibility, which ultimately builds a solid foundation not only for college success but for success in all other areas of life.

Socializing, Teamwork, and Communication Skills

No one exists in isolation—everyone and everything is interrelated. Hersh and Schneider point out that the formation of personal and social responsibility is powerfully influenced by the character of the community culture (2005, p. 2). Irresponsible students impair collective academic life. College outcomes are affected by students' interactions with faculty and peers, and the campus environment exerts a shaping influence on everyone within it. Academic learning is to a very high degree an in-class process, and it is therefore crucial for students to be actively engaged in the classroom (Hersh & Schneider, 2005). There must be a "partnership" between the college and the student, since colleges alone cannot "produce" student learning (Davis & Murrell, 2003, p. 2). Integrating oneself into the college community and participating in teamwork is an integral part of that partnership.

The ability to communicate intellectually with faculty and peers is a very important factor in achieving satisfactory academic and developmental gains. In-class activities serve as the catalyst through which students engage with academic learning and development. Effective academic communication is, as Hersh and Schneider argue, essential because the formation of personal responsibility is "powerfully influenced by the character of the [college] community culture, and the community's own integrity and vitality depends, in turn, on the values, actions, and contributions of its members" (2005, p. 2). It is therefore imperative that students develop strong academic communication skills as part of their broader growth in personal responsibility.

Conclusion

Personal responsibility and satisfactory college outcomes go hand in hand. Personal responsibility requires an individual to recognize and accept that he or she is the sole determinant of his or her decisions. People have a strong tendency to blame others—or the circumstances they find themselves in—for the mistakes they make. Because college is, for most students, the first time in their lives when they must make truly independent decisions—ones not guided by teachers or family—many struggle to distinguish between genuine self-determination and the reflex to externalize blame. Developing and accepting personal responsibility takes time. Students should make the best use of the transitional period they are privileged to spend on campus: cultivating personal responsibility not only for college success, but also to become responsible members of society long after graduation.

Annotated References

Davis, T. M. & Murrell, P. H. (2003). Turning teaching into learning: The role of student responsibility in the collegiate experience (pp. 1–5). Retrieved May 2, 2012, from www.ntlf.com/html/lib/bib/93-8dig.htm

Davis and Murrell focus on the teaching of personal responsibility as an essential part of the collegiate experience. Higher learning institutions must work to create an intellectual climate in which students feel welcome and able to fully participate. It is equally important that institutions nurture the ethics and morals that promote students' personal responsibility. In turn, students will contribute to a climate in which both faculty and fellow students can grow and learn.

Hersh, R. H. & Schneider, C. G. (2005). Fostering personal and social responsibility on college and university campuses. (pp. 1–7). Retrieved May 1, 2012, from www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-sufa05/le-sufa05feature1.cfm

Hersh and Schneider argue that personal and social responsibility is increasingly recognized as a central goal of college learning. Ethics, values, and personal and social responsibility are considered important not only for the higher education community as a whole, but also for the many professions—such as education, business, and health—that college students will enter. College campuses absorb much of the broader culture and also confront many of its significant problems, including cheating, alcohol and drug abuse, and violence. For institutions that seek to educate the "whole person," fostering personal responsibility is of prominent importance.

Sullivan, D. R. (2011). Learning to walk. (pp. 26–28). Retrieved May 1, 2012, from https://secure.ccie.com/exchangeaccess/articles.php

Sullivan's passage uses the metaphor of babies learning to walk to explore how adults can understand their own capacity for change. Few things that matter in life are easily achieved. Personal change may be one of the most difficult endeavors an individual will ever undertake. Nevertheless, determination and perseverance will, for most people, eventually lead to meaningful personal transformation.

Tracy, B. (2011). Taking personal responsibility (pp. 1–6). Retrieved May 1, 2012, from www.successmethods.org/brian_tracy-a19.html

Tracy's article outlines the steps required to achieve personal responsibility and the many rewards that accomplishing this goal can offer across all areas of life. Because people have freedom of choice and have, in effect, chosen every circumstance of their lives, they bear complete responsibility for their successes and failures, their happiness and unhappiness, and their present and future. Responsibility goes hand in hand with success, achievement, motivation, happiness, and self-actualization.