College Knowledge for the Community College Student

Chapter 7. Explore Your Relationships, Choices, Identity, and Inner Self

1. Explore, Affirm, and Own Your Life Choices One of the most exciting opportunities of adulthood is identifying who we are and making our own choices. This is an ongoing process that starts when we are very young and continues throughout our lives. For many young people, community college is one of the first opportunities to make choices solely on their own, without parents and other adults setting the parameters. For others, who return to college after a few or many years away from school, being in college can be an opportunity to reevaluate choices and set the stage for a different future. 138 7 CHAPT ER 7: Explore Relationships, Choices, Identity 139 To evaluate your choices, you will need to step back and see all the old things you’ve been doing in your life with new eyes and perspectives . And you should remain open to trying new things and examine the effect of those as well. It takes both experience and reflection to be able to judge the short-term and long-term impact of your choices. Your choices come in many shapes and forms, big and small, significant and less significant. Most important, however, you also get to choose your classes and your major. Many people will advise you and tell you what you should study. Listen carefully to what they say because they mean well, have a lifetime of experience to share with you, and can serve as important resources and support for you. And of course you will need to pay attention to the requirements imposed by your community college. If you are receiving financial aid or support for vocational rehabilitation, you will need to pay attention to requirements set by these programs as well. But even with such limits, you are the one who must choose selections that make sense to you. Sometimes students come to us concerned because a family member—a parent or partner—is opposed to their choice of major or career. Our questions are always the same: What are your reasons for your choice? Have you thought through the consequences of choosing this major or career? And our advice is always this: whether your choice leads to the career you desire or to other results, you are the one who must live with your choice. In five years or ten years, when you wake up in the morning, you want to be able to say that, whatever has happened, you made the best choice for you. College Knowledge/Community College Student 140 The knowledge that you are in charge of your choices can be both thrilling and frightening. That’s how freedom is. That’s what life is about. When you break the rules, they are your rules. And when you set forth on your own path, it’s your path and choices, your accomplishments and failures, and the meaning and fulfillment are your own. Community college offers you a chance to reaffirm the choices you’ve been making in your life or to put those aside and try out some new ones. If you do this right, it will be a continual process that lasts throughout your lifetime. Give yourself time and space to do this. Most of all, give yourself the power to shape your own life. 2. Reexamine Your Values Who am I? What matters most to me? And, what does that have to do with my being here at this community college? The weight of important existential questions of life can feel like a heavy burden particularly in the middle of huge transitions— changing your career, being part of a new culture, shifting from high school to college or from military to civilian life. But these questions are essential for moving forward in life. Particularly if you have never done so before, it is critical that you start the process of questioning while you are in college. We often ask first-year students to write essays about their individual and group identities or their experiences and goals. Students 7: Explore Relationships, Choices, Identity 141 embrace this assignment because it allows them to look back on their experiences and reflect on their values, their ideals, and their identities. They write outstanding papers for this assignment, and we encourage you to do the same. But, invariably, they will ask how anyone can possibly grade them on their identity. We tell them that we value each...