Beginning Junior Year of College: Halfway Home

Your Junior Year Academic And Career Goals

So what have you learned about yourself academically during the first half of your college career?

What courses have you taken and loved, and what classes have you had trouble dragging yourself to attend every time? What distinctions can you draw from those experiences? Did you love your large lecture classes or hate them? Or did your enjoyment depend on the subject area or the professor? What introductory courses or subjects did you enjoy that you might want to explore more intensively?
Did you hear about any other subjects that your roommates or friends explored that you might want to check out?

Unless you are exploring a new area of interest, this is the year you will be leaving the large survey courses behind and starting to take smaller, more specialized classes, particularly in your major field of study. At many colleges and universities, it is also the year you first begin to qualify for certain seminar courses open only to upperclassmen or you first have the option to take independent study courses one-on-one with a professor in an area of interest to you. Have you yet encountered a professor with whom you might want to work in that capacity? Have you encountered a particularly interesting academic question or subject that might be the impetus for such an arrangement?

Your Junior Year Social Goals

Have you found a good group of friends? Have you met the kinds of people you wanted to meet? Has your group of friends developed some habits that disempower you such that you might want to limit your exposure to them? Are you dating someone, either on campus or somewhere else? Do you want to be? Maybe now is the time either to approach that person you've been thinking about or at least to be open to the idea of dating someone more seriously.

Consider whether you want to set any new goals or ground rules for your social interactions on campus this year. Has your social life been swallowing up your academic life, such that you need to rein it in this year and get serious about your studies? Or have you been so serious about your studies that you are spending too much time in the library and missing the broader experience of college? Remember that success in college is about balance. Is your life in balance?

Extracurricular Goals

This is the year that you make the transition from sampling a bunch of different extracurricular activities, or "dabbling," to making more serious commitments to the two or three things that you really like. What are those things? What activities or organizations have meant something to you during the past two years, such that you are now ready to make a more serious commitment to them?

Did you make a varsity team? If you did, is it still meaningful to you, or are you finding the time commitment, the travel, and the impingement on the rest
of your college calendar to be too much? Does it look like you're going to get to play a lot, or are you going to be primarily a bench player? There is nothing that says you have to continue to play your varsity sport"and yes, that's true even if you have an athletic scholarship. There is more than one way to pay for college, and if you are going to mortgage a significant part of your experience to play a sport you don't enjoy anymore, you should at least consider your alternatives.

Your Junior Year Physical Goals

For many of us, junior year brought the first real understanding that college was having a negative effect on us physically.

Things definitely tend to get a little out of control during the first couple of years of college. So think of this section as your checkup in that regard"and chances are, you probably have some work to do to get back in shape.

First of all, check in on your diet. Are you eating enough? Are you eating too much? Has your weight dropped or ballooned significantly? Are you eating healthily most days, or does your diet feature mainly pizza and beer and whatever you pick up at the campus quick-mart? What do you want to do about that this year? Maybe it is as easy as having a salad from the salad bar every day and taking a piece of fruit with you to class after breakfast and lunch. Maybe you have more to do than that. Be sure to write down some dietary goals for the coming year.

Another thing that tends to get lost during the first couple of years of college is exercise. Chances are, if you're not an athlete and you weren't already committed to a regular program of exercise before you got to college, you're not exercising. But you ought to be! At no other time in your life will you have as much flexibility and opportunity to commit yourself to a regular exercise program as you have right now. Might you want to set some goals in that area for this year? Do you want to take up mountain biking, rollerblading, or running? Your college or university no doubt has clubs or informal groups that organize these activities daily. Do you want to do some research to find one?

Your Junior Year Financial Goals

Finances are another place in which things tend to get a little out of control during the first couple of years of college. Chalk it up to an educational experience, but get your spending under control now, before things really get out of hand.

Chances are, you've now discovered that college is even more expensive than you thought it would be"and that opportunities to spend money are around every turn. Obviously, you take this trip only once, and you don't want to de­prive yourself of everything in the name of financial responsibility, . . . but you also don't need to buy every new CD that comes out or drop a hundred bucks a week on clothes. What financial guidelines do you want to set for yourself this year?

Are you on a budget? Should you be? Have you now realized that you really do need to draw one up so that you'll know what kind of plan you need to stick to?

Are you on a work-study plan again this year, or for the first time? Have you figured out how you're going to fit those hours into your week so as to minimize the disruption of your academic and social schedule?

Do you want to get a part-time job somewhere to make some extra cash? Maybe you could tutor someone in one of your strong subjects, or become a teaching assistant. What are your other marketable skills?

Your Junior Year Spiritual Goals

As we've mentioned before, junior year is a time of intense personal development. Gone is the newness and carefree feeling of being an underclassman; in its place is the growing sense that "real life" is looming and that this is the year you'll need to start making decisions about that. For many of us who still lacked a clear vision or purpose for our lives, junior year became a time of even deeper introspection and varying levels of concern ranging from mild stress to serious depression.

And for many of us, connecting to some sort of spirituality during these times of transition was very comforting.

Again, spirituality does not necessarily mean religion, and I am not suggesting that you need to find religion in order to find vision or purpose. For some people, though, connecting to their religion can provide the necessary grounding and direction.

Now What Do I Do With All Of This?

Now is the time to look back at the lists you made in each of these areas and take stock. Which goals did you achieve, and which ones did you not achieve? Think about the ones you did achieve: How did you make them happen? What specific things did you do to make sure you achieved those goals? How can you replicate that ac­tivity to help you achieve your new goals?

Really take the time to think about this. Knowing what motivates you to get things done and what specific actions lead you to accomplishment is immensely valuable, because they can be replicated in any number of scenarios. So think about why and how you achieved the goals you did and write down any distinctions you can draw.

You now need a way to manage all those ideas you've recorded and to go through them and cull the ones that are most critical to you"to choose the ones that you think will give you the most bang for your buck, so to speak.

Here's what you're going to do next.

Go back through each list and read what you've written down. Think about each item and see how it resonates with you. Some of the ideas will get you fired up as soon as you think about them. Others, upon reflection, may not seem that important or that exciting after all.

It's all good. That's part of the goal-setting process.

Go through each list and pick the three things from that area that you are absolutely committed to accomplishing this year or, if you want to think more long term, during the rest of your college career. Pick the three things that you feel are most critical to making your experience a success"three that would make you feel great about yourself if you were to accomplish them.

One More Step...

Okay.

You should now have chosen somewhere around eighteen goals for your junior year or perhaps for college in general.

But you're not done yet.

Setting goals is one thing. But as we noted earlier, a goal without a plan is just a wish.

So now, for each one of these goals, we want you to articulate at least one very good reason why it is essential for you to follow up and to achieve that goal during your junior year. Make sure your reason compels you"that it lights a fire under you and propels you toward meeting the goal.

Additional Resources

Robbins, Anthony. Awaken the Giant Within. New York: Free Press, 1992.

Robbins, Anthony. Personal Power (audio series). Robbins Research International. (www.anthonyrobbins.com)

Robbins, Anthony. RPM Planner Kit (time management system).
(www.anthonyrobbins.com)

Robbins, Anthony. Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement.
New York: Free Press, 1997.