Launch Your Career in College: Strategies for Students, Educators, and Parents

In the middle of difficulty is opportunity.

—Albert Einstein

The way you value yourself often determines your experience in college. You will truly transform yourself if you are willing to step up and master the opportunities ahead of you in your classes. You can identify and focus on interests that may open new worlds for you. In the process, you will grow in both intellect and courage.

In primitive societies, adolescent boys were initiated through physically demanding, arduous trials in order to take their roles as brave men in the tribe. Today, we have different rites of passage. Our modern rites are literacy-based, not physical. College is, in effect, our survival ritual by which we assume our place in the world as responsible adults. We prove ourselves by our ability to survive and thrive intellectually through our advanced ability to read, think, and write. Oral exams, essays, and papers are trials to demonstrate our ability to analyze, research, understand, and display our knowledge. But there is more to it than just surviving; there is also our need for discovery. We hope to be able to contribute fresh and useful ideas. We want to make a difference.

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