Motivating Success

Personal Identity

Approximate reading time: 6 minutes

Assessing Your Values

The journey of achieving success in college begins with a single step: identifying your values.

Personal values shape the roles you play in daily life. They color your interests and passions and frame your thoughts and words. In essence, your values are a compass that help you make decisions and choices.

So what are your values? Do you know? Which are most important to you, and which are least important? How do your values fit into your educational goals? How do your educational goals relate to your future career?

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To help you answer these questions, you can use “self-assessment” surveys. These surveys can help you evaluate your identity—your thoughts, actions, attitudes, beliefs, values, and behaviors—in relationship to the task at hand, like going to college and preparing for a career.

Many different self-assessment surveys are available from college career centers and online sites. Some are designed as personality tests, like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MTBI®), the most widely used personality inventory in history. You may also come across instruments designed as scales, measures, games, surveys, and more. These descriptors are often interchangeably used, although they mostly refer to questionnaires. The distinctions are not as important as whether or not the instrument meets your self-assessment needs.

If you've never completed a self-assessment survey, here are a couple to try:

Characteristics of Successful Students - Student Assessment
16 Personalities - Personality Assessment
My Next Move - Career Assessment

Your Responsibilities

Now that you have transitioned into college, you will have new responsibilities. Research has shown that students who get involved in career-planning activities stay in college longer, graduate on time, improve their academic performance, tend to be more goal-focused and motivated, and have a more satisfying and fulfilling college experience. This is why an important first step in college is examining your identity and values. By examining your values first, you begin defining your educational goals and ultimately planning your career.

Secondary to the critical nature of assessing your values is the importance of committing to your responsibilities as a student. What are your new student responsibilities? Are they financial? Course-specific? Social? Health-related? Ethical? What exactly is expected of you?

Expectations for student behavior vary from campus to campus. A search for “college student responsibilities” reveals the breadth of expectations deemed important at any given institution. At Westmoreland, you're expected to adhere to the policies in the Code of Student Conduct.

Broadly, though, you are expected to at least act consistently with Westmoreland's values and obey local, state, and federal laws. It is also expected that you actively participate in your career decision-making process, respond to advising, and plan to graduate.

Consult your college handbook or Web site for details about your rights and responsibilities as a student. Overall, you demonstrate that you are a responsible student when you do the following:

Uphold the values of honesty and academic integrity.
Arrive on time and prepared for all classes, meetings, academic activities, and special events.
Give attention to quality and excellence in completing assignments.
Allot sufficient time to fulfill responsibilities outside of class.
Observe etiquette in all communications, respecting instructors, fellow students, staff, and the larger college community.

Take full advantage of the college resources available to you.
Respect diversity in people, ideas, and opinions.
Achieve educational goals in an organized, committed, and proactive manner.
Take full responsibility for personal behavior.
Comply with all college policies.

By allowing these overarching principles to guide you, you embrace responsibility and make choices that lead to college success.

Who Are You As a Student?

Imagine for a moment that you live in the ancient city of Athens, Greece. You are a student at Plato’s University of Athens, considered in modern times to be the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. The campus sits just outside Athens’s city walls, a mile from your home. You walk to class and take your seat in the gymnasium, where all classes are held. Gatherings are small, just a handful of fellow students, most of whom are males born and raised in Athens. When your class is finished, you walk back to the city. Your daily work awaits you—hurry.

Now return to the present time. How does your college environment compare to the university in ancient Athens? Where do you live now, relative to campus? Do you report to a job site before or after class? Who are your fellow students, and where do they live in relationship to you and campus? What city or country are they from?

If you indulge in these imaginative comparisons, you may find many similarities between the past and the present. You may find many differences, too. Perhaps the most striking difference will be the makeup of each student body.

There is no “one size fits all” description of a college student. However, each student bears a responsibility to understand the diverse terrain of their peers. Who are the students you may share class with? How have they come to share the college experience with you?

Read through the brief descriptions below to learn more about the different types of students you may encounter at Westmoreland.

Traditional Students

Traditional undergraduate students typically enroll in college immediately after graduating from high school. They attend classes on a continuous full-time basis, at least during the fall and spring semesters (or fall, winter, and spring quarters). They complete a bachelor’s degree program in four or five years by the age of twenty-two or twenty-three. Traditional students are also typically financially dependent on others (such as their parents), do not have children, and consider their college career to be their primary responsibility. They may be employed only on a part-time basis, if at all, during the academic year.

Nontraditional Students

Nontraditional students do not enter college in the same calendar year that they finish high school. They typically attend classes part-time due to full-time work obligations. They are more likely to be financially independent, have children, and/or be caregivers of sick or elderly family members. Some nontraditional students may have received a general educational development degree (GED) instead of a high school diploma.

First-Generation Students

First-generation students do not have a parent who graduated from college with a baccalaureate degree. College life may be less familiar to them, and the preparation for entering college may not have been stressed as a priority at home. Some time and support may be needed to become accustomed to the college environment. These students may experience a culture shift between school life and home life.

Students with Disabilities

Students with disabilities include those who have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders, blindness or low vision, brain injuries, deafness/hard-of-hearing, learning disabilities, medical disabilities, physical disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, and speech and language disabilities. Students with disabilities are legally accorded reasonable accommodations that give them an equal opportunity to attain the same level of performance as students without a disability. Even with these accommodations, however, physical and electronic campus facilities and practices can pose special challenges. Time, energy, and added resources may be needed.

International Students or Nonnative Speakers of English

International students travel to a country different from their own to study in college. English is likely their second language. Nonnative speakers of English, like international students, come from a different culture, too. For both of these groups, college may pose special challenges. For example, classes may, at first or for a time, pose hardships due to cultural and language barriers.

Working Students

Many students are employed in either a part-time or full-time capacity. Balancing college life with work life may be a challenge. Time management skills and good organization can help. These students typically have two jobs—being a student and an employee. It can be a lot to balance.

Licenses and Attributions

CC licensed content, Original

College Success. Authored by: Linda Bruce. Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution
Myers-Briggs Types. Authored by: Jake Beech. Provided by: Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY-SA 3.0

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