Learn about Yourself
5
Though everyone’s path to success looks different, there’s one skill that we all need to succeed: critical thinking. When you engage in critical thinking, you consider information thoughtfully, understand how to think logically and rationally, and apply those methods of thinking in your classes and your life.6 Critical thinking helps you examine information in a careful, unbiased way so that you can use that information to make good decisions.
In college, academic success and critical thinking go hand in hand. As you’ll see throughout this book, you can use critical thinking in your classes to analyze information, answer questions on exams, and write papers, among many other pursuits. But you can also use it in a more personal way, to better understand yourself. This kind of critical thinking involves reflection, which is a time for you to think about your hopes, wishes, and what you’re looking for from college and from life. Reflection helps you pinpoint your goals (what you want to achieve) and your motivations (what drives you to keep working toward your goals). When you recognize your goals and motivations, classes have more meaning for you, you find it easier to stay focused, and you feel more confident when you’re making important decisions, such as what major to declare or certificate to pursue.
WRITING PROMPT: Ask students to respond to the following questions: What are the differences between values and interests? What are the connections? How do values and interests affect the way you act from day to day? Which values or interests stand out the most for you, and why?
Throughout this book you’ll have many opportunities to learn more about yourself. To get started, think critically about two personal attributes that powerfully influence your goals and motivations: your values and your interests.
Discover Your Values
Your values are what you consider important — really important. They stem from your experiences with your family, your community, or your faith. For example, your values may include getting a good job, taking care of your family, or playing an active role in your community. Values are essential because they can influence your behavior and your choices. You’re more likely to pursue goals and activities that are consistent with what you care about most.
ACTIVITY: Have students identify a person they greatly respect. Help them create a list of the top three reasons they respect this individual. Invite two or three students to share their list. Point out that students may want to cultivate these attributes in their own life.
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Consider Tasha, a first-year student who is picking elective courses to fulfill her general-education requirements. Her values include the importance of treating people fairly and helping those in need — values she learned from growing up with parents who behaved in these ways with others. Tasha’s adviser suggests that she take a political science and a U.S. history course. In these classes Tasha will learn how the United States has, over time, developed legal systems as well as political and social support structures aimed at treating people fairly and helping those in need. Because the subject matter in these courses connects to ideas that mean a lot to Tasha — it connects to her values — she’ll likely find the classes interesting. And she’ll be motivated to complete assignments, master the material, and do her best on exams.
CONNECT
TO MY EXPERIENCE
(1) What is the most important thing in your life right now? (2) What single goal would you most like to achieve? (3) What would most motivate you to achieve that goal? Write your answers on a separate sheet of paper.
What are your values? For starters, the fact that you’re in college means you value education. Perhaps you and your family make sacrifices so that you can attend school. Maybe you juggle commitments, taking out loans and cutting back on your work hours to free up time and energy for class. You’re making these sacrifices because you appreciate what a college education has to offer.
Take a moment to think about what other values you hold dear. All of these values affect the decisions you make. For example, if you want to build a meaningful career after you graduate (and most students do7), reflecting on your values can help you pick a major that will help prepare you for such a career. Suppose that taking care of others is one of your values. In this case, majors like nursing or teaching might be the perfect fit for you. If achieving financial independence is among your values, then majors that lay a foundation for lucrative careers — such as finance or business administration — might be good matches. The more you know about yourself, the more meaningful your chosen goals will be — and the more motivated you’ll be to keep working toward those goals.
FOR DISCUSSION: Ask students to create a list of three to five values, in order of significance, that they currently hold. Start a discussion by noting that values will vary from student to student and that how we rank our values will often shift throughout our lives.
Follow Your Interests
7
Like your values, your interests powerfully influence your goals and motivations. Interests are your preferences for activities, things, people, and places — everything from exercise to animals to cars to music. Why are interests so important? When you define goals that connect with your interests, you’re more likely to feel motivated to achieve those goals. For instance, if you’re interested in the outdoors, physical activity, and nature, you’ll be motivated to complete assignments in courses that incorporate these elements, such as wilderness management and forestry. Finding ways to connect your coursework with your interests — even when the connection isn’t obvious — is a great way to stay motivated.
ACTIVITY: Ask students to identify their top five interests — anything from skateboarding to cosplaying to writing music. In pairs, have students share their interests with their partner. Give student pairs two minutes to brainstorm as many possible career choices as they can based on the list. Some ideas may be silly or impractical — the goal is to make connections between activities enjoyed in everyday life and career choices.
You’ll learn more about your interests later in the book, but don’t wait until then to start thinking about them. Consider what you like and don’t like as you evaluate the courses you’re taking, interact with your fellow students, and reflect on your past academic and work experiences. The more you’re interested in the work you’re doing in school, the more energized you’ll feel as you pursue your goals.
Table 1.1 shows examples of how values and interests can connect with goals.
| Sample student | Values | Interests | Possible academic and career goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liza |
|
|
Take some courses that involve assignments like written reports and group projects. Pursue careers that offer a good starting salary, a clear advancement path, and opportunities to use my writing skills and work on team-based projects. |
| Theo |
|
|
Join volunteer organizations on campus. Learn about career opportunities at organizations that address problems affecting my community, such as poverty, crime, or mental illness. |
| Ahmed |
|
|
Take daytime courses that involve outdoor, hands-on projects (such as taking water samples for an ecology class). Explore careers that let me work reasonable hours while also building a professional reputation (such as publishing articles about field research I conduct). |
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voices of experience: student
LEARNING ABOUT YOURSELF
| NAME: | Russell Jackson |
| SCHOOL: | Iowa State University |
| MAJOR: | Psychology |
| CAREER GOALS: | Professor, Counselor |
“I thought critically about myself and found my calling.”
I’ve struggled to find my purpose in life, mainly because I’m terrified of making big decisions. I’ve been worried that I don’t know myself well enough to make the right decision, and I don’t want to travel down a road, taking my family with me, if it’s not meant for me. I used to go to someone I trusted, listen to his suggestion about my future, and run with it.
About a year and a half ago, I ended a career that just didn’t fit me. My situation was frustrating and stressful, and I was running out of steam with no idea where to go or what to do. I needed to create some happiness. I realized then that I had never sat down and considered what I wanted, what I loved, and where I wanted to go. I knew I couldn’t simply follow everyone else’s desires for me anymore. I had to take charge of my destiny and mold it to meet my needs. I had to make changes that would help me prepare for a different career.
For the next year, I worked on finding my purpose in life. I put aside what others thought I should do and focused on my own thoughts, desires, talents, and goals. I thought critically about myself and found my calling. It didn’t come all at once, but it did finally develop into a recognizable goal: I want to be a counseling psychologist.
Once my goal was set, everything else fell into place. I enrolled in school, registered for classes, spoke with professors, and found opportunities like volunteering, working in research labs, and helping at the Student Counseling Service. Granted, it’s still difficult; I battle most days with thoughts that I can’t do it. Sometimes I have to fight off doubts that I made the right decision. However, I’m able to overcome those fears and doubts by remembering that I know what I want from my life. My life is bright and fulfilling, simply because I finally found my purpose.
YOUR TURN: Do you have a sense of what your purpose might be? If so, what is it? Does it influence the goals you define for yourself? If you don’t yet know your purpose, how might learning more about your values and interests help you find clarity?
FEATURE: Each chapter includes two Voices of Experience narratives — one from a student and one from an employee. These real, first-person stories model how chapter concepts affect the lives of college students and graduates in various programs and careers. Each Voice of Experience concludes with a prompt asking students to compare their own experiences with those of the individuals featured. Consider using this feature to generate class discussion or as a writing assignment in which students create a Voice of Experience story of their own.