Your College Experience: When Will Trouble Start?

1. Your College Experience: When Will Trouble Start? Oaks Christian High School February 4, 2008 Don Thompson Associate Vice President Pepperdine University

2. Research Summary • Hypothesis: The college years are a critical time for the development of faith, identity, and one’s sense of life purpose • Research Method: College students measured at 5 milestones by surveys and interviews: • Baseline (summer after high school) • Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, & Senior Years

3. Research Findings • Sense of Life Purpose stems from • Faith Maturity • Identity Development • One Year Stands Out as the most Critical Turning Point for YOUR Identity Development • Which Year???

4. Ego-Identity Status • Four types of Identity – We are a mixture of: • Diffusion: no exploration or commitment • “I haven’t really considered politics. It just doesn’t excite me much.” • Foreclosure: no exploration, but commitment • “My parents decided a long time ago what I should go into for employment and I’m following through with their plans.” • Moratorium: exploration without commitment • “Religion is confusing to me right now. I keep changing my views on what is right and wrong for me.” • Achievement: exploration and commitment • “It took me a while to figure it out, but now I really know what I want for a career.”

5. Identity Development

6. So, when WILL Trouble Occur? • The Sophomore year is THE pivotal year in your movement toward becoming an adult • Questions you might ask yourself: • Is this the wrong school? • Is this the wrong major? • Can I do this? • Who ARE my friends? • What do I believe? • Who am I, really? • What am I supposed to do with my life?

7. Four Years and their Stories • First Year – Honeymoon • Casey • Sophomore Year – Confusion • Is this REALLY happening to ME? • Junior Year – Confidence • Jacob • Senior Year – Anxiety and Excitement • Catherine

8. What Causes the Trouble? • This has been the hardest but also the best year of my life. Living away from home forced me to either embrace or reject what I have believed all my life. It removed my safety nets. • I have grown through having to lean on God in almost every situation: from traveling to school to just living in a different culture, in a different location. • My being away from home challenged my sense of self. • Being alone, away from my family and friends showed me how to depend on the grace of God for support. • A person I met in a field trip helped me realize my selfishness, making me want to be more generous. • My parents taught me well, but now I have to really figure things out for myself. It scares me sometimes. I’m not always sure where to turn.

9. What Now? • Follow your Bliss • Do what you love • Do what you do well • Reach Out • Work Hard • Trust the Process

10. Reach Out – Connect with a Mentor • One of the other students in my major made me challenge myself and helped me grow spiritually and intellectually. • The dorm counselors impacted me the most because we live with them and they are the leaders that we look up to the most. • When I felt lost, my faculty advisor knew and was someone that would come up to me and ask what was wrong. She would help me understand what I was going t through. • My teacher made me feel better. He always made time to check on me and how I was doing. • The program assistant had a great impact on me spiritually this semester through her incredible yet humble display of faith. She is such an inspirational woman of God.

11. So What? • A Universal Process • Honeymoon • Reality Sets In • Grow and Change • Connect to a mentor • It will probably happen to you – and it is a good thing!