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From the day they arrive on campus, college students spend four
years-or sometimes more-making decisions that shape every aspect of
their academic and social lives. Whether choosing a major or a
roommate, some students embrace decision-making as an opportunity
for growth, while others seek to minimize challenges and avoid
risk. Practice for Life builds a compelling case that a liberal
arts education offers students a complex, valuable process of
self-creation, one that begins in college but continues far beyond
graduation. Sifting data from a five-year study that followed over
two hundred students at seven New England liberal arts colleges,
the authors uncover what drives undergraduates to become engaged
with their education. They found that students do not experience
college as having a clear beginning and end but as a continuous
series of new beginnings. They start and restart college many
times, owing to the rhythms of the academic calendar, the vagaries
of student housing allocation, and other factors. This dynamic has
drawbacks as well as advantages. Not only students but also parents
and faculty place enormous weight on some decisions, such as
declaring a major, while overlooking the small but significant
choices that shape students' daily experience. For most
undergraduates, deep engagement with their college education is at
best episodic rather than sustained. Yet these disruptions in
engagement provide students with abundant opportunities for
reflection and course-correction as they learn to navigate the
future uncertainties of adult life.
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