Helping College Students Find Purpose
The Campus Guide to Meaning-Making
Robert J. Nash, Michele C. Murray
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Helping College Students Find Purpose
The Campus Guide to Meaning-Making
Robert J. Nash, Michele C. Murray
About This Book
Helping College Students Find Purpose
Today's college students are demanding that their educational experiences address the core questions of meaning and purpose... What does it mean to be successful? How will I know what type of career is best for me? Why do I hurt so much when a relationship ends? Why do innocent people have to suffer?
Faculty and administrators are in the unique position to make special contributions to their students' search for meaning, and when they work together, everyone on a college campus benefits. Helping College Students Find Purpose provides a theory-to-practice model of meaning-making that enables the entire campus community to participate in the process. Based on a practical how-to approach, the authors outline a series of concrete steps for applying the theory and practice of meaning-making to teaching, leading, administering, and advising.
Filled with real-life vignettes, this guidebook includes the background knowledge and proven tools that will help faculty and administrators act as effective mentors to students. While there is no single solution that can meet everyone's needs, the authors provide a series of classroom and cross-campus strategies that are specifically designed to help students successfully navigate their diverse meaning-making activities and effectively enhance their quest for meaning.
Frequently asked questions
Information
Part I
Making Meaning in the Quarterlife
1
Is the Quarterlife Generation Ready for Meaning-Making?
- Can college students handle the intellectual complexities of meaning-making?
- Are they mature enough?
- Have they had enough life experience?
- Is the concept of meaning of equal interest to all students?
- Does meaning-making require a particular level of emotional and social intelligence?
Quarterlife Challenges
- It is threatening for quarterlifers to face the world on their own, many for the first time, away from the securities of families of origin, earlier schooling, and, for older quarterlifers, familiar jobs, marriages, and surroundings.
- Unprecedented competition for highly specialized jobs in the twenty-first-century world is fierce, and the resultant emotional stress can be devastating.
- The pressure to select the right colleges and universities, the right preprofessional major and minor fields of study, and the right graduate schools, professions, and occupations, in order to succeed later in the work world, can be nerve-racking.
- Friendships are, at best, tentative, and committed, intimate relationships are often put on hold, because so much of oneās future is up in the air.
- Quarterlife concerns about success and failure in a changing economy and in an increasingly specialized, technological job market induce intense anxiety, depression, eating disorders, drug abuse, and, in extreme cases, violence and suicide.
- āDo what you love, and love what you doā seems for many quarterlifers to be a near-impossibility, either in college or in the job market, because the expectations are so high to secure future jobs that will confer security, status, wealth, and power benefits.
- Credit card debt, school loans, and personal bankruptcies are out of control.
- Hopes and DreamsāHow do I find my passion? When do I let go of my dream? What if I donāt get what I want by a certain age? How do I start over, if I find I need to?
- Educational ChallengesāAm I studying what is right for me? Why do I have to be so preoccupied with gearing up for graduate school and a career when Iād just like to enjoy exploring the arts and humanities? How well am I handling the freedom of college and being away from home for the first time? Why does my college experience neglect all the really important questions that come up for me regarding my hopes and dreams for the future?
- Religion and SpiritualityāWhat is the right religion for me? Why am I so critical of my childhood religion? Why is it that a noninstitutional spirituality seems, at times, to be so powerful for me? Will my parents be disappointed if I donāt remain loyal to the religion of our family? Why does God seem so far away from me on some days and so close at other times? Can any good come from doubting? Do I need a religious faith to be a moral person? Can I be good without God? Is there any other way to make a meaning that is enduring without religion or spirituality? Why is it that so many of my college friends think of religion in such negative terms? Will I be able to make it in the world without experiencing the consolations of organized religion along with its supportive communities? In what religion will I bring up my children, if I have any?
- Work LifeāWill I always have to choose between doing what I love or making lots of money? Will I ever really look forward to going off to work every day? Is it true that Iāll change careers many times before I retire? If, yes, then whatās the point of taking all this time to prepare for a particular career? Will I ever find work where I wonāt feel such stress to produce all the time? Does my work always have to be so competitive and bottom-line? Is it possible to find a career that is congruent with my personal values? Will I eventually have to settle for a career driven by my obligation to pay off the tens of thousands of dollars that I will owe in student loans? What does ābalanceā look like when work and stress build up? Why is it that I feel I have so much potential, but I am afraid to actualize it? Why am I so haunted by self-doubt?
- Home, Friends, Lovers, and FamilyāWhy is it so hard to live alone but also so hard to sustain a relationship? Is there really such a person as a āsoul mateā? How will I know when I fall in love with āThe Oneā? Am I loveable? How do I avoid feeling stuck in my relationships? Why canāt I find close, enduring friends who stay the course without drifting away? Is there something about me that causes this? Why is the thought of moving back in with my parents so terrible? Now that Iāve moved away, how do I make friends? Who will be my true friends, will I ever fit in, and how will I know who I can trust?
- IdentityāWhy is adulthood, at one and the same time, so threatening to me yet also so attractive? Why is it that I alternate between thinking that my life is either exciting or boring? How can I stop feeling overwhelmed about everything? Why do I worry so much about how I look? Why canāt I like who I am? Will I ever be truly happy with myself? Why do I feel so guilty when others claim I am privileged? Why is everyone so hung up on identity politics? Arenāt we all human beings underneath our skin color, sexual orientation, neighborhoods, and private parts?