The WHY of College

The purpose of this blog entry is to answer the challenge given to me by my dissertation chair. My chair challenged me to start a blog to encourage college learners throughout the process. The second purpose is to provide tips, tricks, stories, and lessons that may be learned as the process goes on.  

With the rising costs of education, higher education may be out of reach for many. We have been instilled in K-12 education that college is the way to go to make a living. 

Success in life is what you as an individual make of it. 

Going to college for whatever reason is a choice. Your reasons for college are most likely different from mine. People go to college to earn a variety of degrees from associates all the way up to doctoral level. I wish I could say that some people go and graduate with a 100 percent graduate rate. People drop out, life happens. If the choice is made to stay, you may not know why you chose your path or your major.

Think of it as a lifelong fast food worker who has worked fifteen years in the fast food industry now has enough money saved from working multiple jobs to begin a nursing position. Their choice to go school has been delayed due to life circumstances. However, they enrolled in the local community college to begin their nursing journey. Their WHY they are going to college may be to help people. Their WHY may be to better themselves as a person by being a nurse.

Another example is a recent high school graduate who wants to be a computer programmer. However, they can only take one or two classes at a time due to costs. Their WHY may be to the first college graduate of their family.

The reasons for everyone's WHY are different. Some want a better life, some want to further the body of knowledge. The WHY may change due to life circumstances and I will be the first to say that's ok.

I will share my WHY I pursued a doctoral degree even though I hold two master's and a bachelors degree. My WHY was to figure out why so many public school teachers were leaving the profession and not returning. As I went through the doctoral process that WHY evolved a few times, till I finally ended up with a purpose statement related to my why. Here is my purpose statement and my

WHY:

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to understand how former elementary teachers in the United States who voluntarily left within the first seven years of their employment, describe how administrators’ support and number of professional responsibilities influenced their decision to leave. 

In short, my doctoral WHY is very different from my bachelors and masters level WHY. Even if you are starting out for the first time, your WHY will be different from those on your campus.

In short, welcome to college!!!