Where do you want your
education to take you? What do you want
from your college degree or do you just simply want a degree? Does it matter to you what the degree
includes? Because we should learn
throughout our lives a goal should extend beyond formal education. An academic goal should be about the learning
that helps fashion a life not just the learning required to earn a degree.
Without a reason for
learning other than the minimum required of our formal education it makes it
very difficult if not impossible to develop the habits to live a life of the
mind so having a goal motivates us to develop said habits. By academic I mean learning of all kinds,
especially outside of the classroom so it includes informal as well as formal
learning. Everything I read, listen to,
watch, experience is academic and a principle part of what makes me me.
Since an academic goal
should extend beyond our formal education years the more grandiose you set it
the better. Make it so grandiose that
perhaps you can’t reach it. Remember it’s
the process of setting the goal and the effort in reaching it that matters not
the actual achievement but also remember that if you want to achieve your goal
the first and most important step in the process is writing it down. By definition you must, not should, but must
write it down. If not, not only is it
not a goal but you will never reach it.
Writing it down will help you see your goal more clearly.
Write out in no more
than two simple, short sentences your goal.
Don’t worry if your goal evolves as you and your life change. You can always edit, update and rewrite your goal. Also write the process of your goal. How will you reach it? What do you need to learn? With the help of technology you can add
pictures of what your goal looks like or how it will look when you reach
it. I set my academic goal in tenth
grade but not until I wrote it down many years later did I truly begin the
process of achieving it and till this day, 35 years later, I’m still in the
process.
You have an
opportunity today to make a change in your life. I know you want to change because that’s what
education is about. Learning changes us
and change starts with setting an academic goal and with writing it down.
Copyright
Bert Lorenzo, 2014
