Finding Purpose in College

It would be wrong to assume that the lack of satisfaction amongst young people begins when they get their first job. Statistics show that students lack direction upon completing high school and therefore enter college without a long-term goal and are confused about what area to major in.

The Numbers Are Staggering

Approximately 35 percent of all students enter college as Undeclared. About 75 percent of all students will change their major at least once, and many will change their major more than three times while in college. Not having a major or changing a major can have a number of negative impacts: obtaining a degree will take longer than four years, it will cost extra money, and there is a psychological cost to working for something without a specific goal in mind.

The Quarter-Million Dollar Question

I often go to high school fairs and talk to students. A young lady at East High School in Denver had been accepted to an Ivy League school. When I asked what she wanted to do with her degree, her response stunned me: "I don't know what I want to do with my life."

"Wouldn't you like to figure that out?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "But that's what college is for, to figure it out."

"Well you do the math," I said. "That's a minimum of four years at sixty thousand dollars a year equaling a quarter million dollars - a very expensive way to figure yourself out, and with no guarantee that it will work."

Give Self-Discovery a Place in Your Education

There is a belief that college is meant to be an experience of self-searching and experimentation. Whilst exploration and introspection are certainly good things - doing it together while studying toward a degree is a uniquely bad idea.

University courses take a semester to complete and are often in-depth and very time consuming. This limits how many ideas one is able to sample. Universities are designed to be places of higher education where the pace of learning is fast and deep - a combination that does not easily lend itself to exploration.

Connect Your Degree with a Purposeful Goal

As Stanford University's Professor William Damon told me over a bowl of chicken and matzo-ball soup at a Kosher deli in Denver, people need to start looking at "equivalences" to college degrees. A college degree's real worth is gained only when it is placed in the context of a larger goal to which the degree is indispensable.

A university degree can serve both your professional ambitions and your wider purpose. Understanding what matters to you gives you a way to choose courses, seek experience and make that education meaningful.

A Purposeless Generation

This lack of direction and passionate purpose is not limited to young adults. Research on the surprising benefits of living with purpose shows just how much is at stake. I often coach successful professionals in their late thirties and early forties who have still not figured out what they want to become when they grow up.

Steve was a successful accountant in his mid-thirties running the regional office of a national accounting firm. Despite his success, he was deeply unhappy - he had no passion for accounting. After going through purpose-finding coaching, Steve discovered his real passion lay in design and real estate development. He made a ten-year goal to transition into that field, and within five years he was well on his way.

If you are considering your direction after graduation, you may also find our article on the quarter-life crisis helpful. Think about how your college degree can contribute to an overarching purposeful goal for your life. That connection can help you decide what to learn and where to apply it.