What a difference a year makes!

What a difference a year makes! Or is it what difference does a year make? After a first year, or first transfer year, it’s challenging to put oneself through a self-assessment. Was that year in school a continuation of what had come before? A series of classes pulling together the strands of a hoped-for future? Is that transformative enough? How do all the pieces of the previous academic year come into a coherent view?

Given the large number of reflection papers or critical thinking papers I’ve assigned I have always wondered whether those assignments that engage reflexivity and critical thought get transferred into how students view their college experiences.

Reflecting on the purpose and meaning of education is critically important because it helps students articulate their own commitments. Having personal ideas about education is a support to push through possible doubts, and to build a sense of purpose beyond credentialing. It also opens new opportunities and some of those can carry risks such as taking a very critical and engaged look at the role higher education plays in the structures of work, career, and society. In taking that wider view, students give themselves the chance to imagine futures that feel both more open and more genuinely their own.