The cleverness of this wordplay can hide some important implications, particularly for college students. At its core this adage is about the importance of decision-making that’s guided by a set of values.

Most students say their goal for coming to a university is to earn a degree. But ideally there is also another type of growth that parallels our academic achievements, that of personal exploration and understanding. A large part of that exploration is realizing why we’re doing what we’re doing. Even if we don’t realize it, our earlier lives were also guided by unconscious beliefs, such as “I need to get all A’s,” “I want to make a lot of money” or “I don’t want others to think I’m weird." For many students, these beliefs and the values that underlie them are usually absorbed from our family and early environment, so they can be taken for granted and are not consciously chosen.

Arthur Chickering, a researcher who studied college student development, noted that coming to the university is a time for students to explore values, translate those values into life, and then adopt, or “personalize” those values. The university environment is often the first time we come face to face with others who hold different beliefs and values. This difference can cause us to reject new and different values and to cling tighter to what’s familiar and comfortable. Doing so, however, means avoiding an opportunity to grow in valuable and lasting ways. Actively exploring and personalizing values is an important part of the university experience and will shape the person we will become.

It can be difficult to examine the beliefs and values that we grew up with and to consider the basic assumptions that we make about the world. To do so, however, is to gain an education that in some ways is more important than the information you learn in the classroom. It allows you to actively choose the values that will guide you in the decisions you make in your life.

Ron Miyguchi, Ph.D.
Senior Staff Psychologist