Expectations

First-year students, home for the first time from college, are often asked, "What is your major?" and "What are your future plans?" All students are expected to pick a major, usually one that leads to a future career. Many students expect a career to be a significant outcome of college. Anticipating and planning careers for the future is the mark of a good student.

A student's family and friends, faculty or institutional expectations are not enough. The student must anticipate and plan his future with his own internalized expectations. What do I expect to do? Do I expect to be at the top of my class? Do I expect to earn good grades, to give my classes the time they deserve?

With successful students, the future has been substituted for the past. Successful college students tend to know where they are going when they enter their second and third year. They are expected to do well and are impressed with faculty who have high expectations of themselves. Students with high expectations select and settle into a major field. While they occasionally change majors, they are rarely shoppers of majors. Many get impatient with the present and wish to move ahead because they are oriented to the future. They meet instructors' ideas by reacting with challenge, not dismay or giving up.

As an instructor, counselor, or advisor, you can help students manage their expectations by guiding them through introspection and to effective institutional and intra-classroom interventions.

Questions to Prompt Student Reflection

  • Do you anticipate the grades you would get at the end of the year?
  • Tell me about your future career.
  • What do your parents or partner think you should do when you graduate?
  • Do you anticipate going to graduate school?
  • What do you expect from yourself?
  • What would be a good major for you, one that would help you meet your dreams and goals?

Counseling Interventions

The following are some suggested counseling interventions you can offer:

  • Value clarification
  • Immediate vs. delayed gratification
  • Job search
  • Career development
  • Major field exploration
  • Self-esteem building
  • Achievement/motivation counseling
  • Brainstorming
  • Decision making

Institutional Interventions

The following are some suggested interventions related to competition. Encourage students to utilize one or more of these services:

  • Student development leadership experiences
  • Career exploration courses
  • Occupational interviews
  • Occupational trends
  • Resume development
  • Career testing
  • Part-time work
  • Co-op education
  • Supplemental instruction
  • Active planning
  • Educational planning
  • Transfer/Graduate school orientations

Ten Steps to Managing Expectations

  1. Engage in discussions about future careers with instructors, family, and peers.
  2. Expect to be in the upper 10 percent of each class.
  3. Develop possible short, mid-term, and long term goals for each semester and class.
  4. Determine what grades you plan to achieve in each class.
  5. Delineate the subject barriers to getting better grades in difficult courses.
  6. Clarify your values. Find out what's important to you.
  7. Make a list of what factors motivate you and try to use them to reinforce activities that will help you achieve your goals.
  8. Select a major of study or career that would reflect your personality, values, abilities, and long term goals.
  9. When making decisions, determine what you need to accomplish, consider the positive and negative, chose a plan of action based on your values, and then take action.
  10. Consider the difference between immediate and delayed gratification and how you respond to each one.

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