Personal Goal Essay: To Be Successful In College

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Personal Goal: To Be Successful In College
The power of our most elementary beliefs, whether cognizant or subliminal, affects our behavior and success in any undertaking or even our ability to improve. Carol Dweck, an American psychologist, suggests that educators should praise learners for their effort, perseverance, or improvement. This inspires them to learn from their mistakes, move on from failures, and take risks. She termed this form of motivation as the "growth mindset," which leads to a yearning to learn and, therefore, a propensity to embrace challenges, continue in the face of obstacles, learn from criticism, and see effort as the path to success. However, by itself, the growth mindset may not be very effective for students at risk, especially minority undergraduates or learners with low socioeconomic status who have rarely received affirmation of their abilities from educators. In addition to mastery-oriented praise that reinforces hard work, these underserved students need messages that acknowledge the external challenges that often inhibit their ability to succeed and their capacity to rise above these trials and succeed. This paper theorizes that motivating college students at risk to greater achievement levels requires instructors to affirm both their ability and effort.
Dweck and other psychologists have shown that students who believe their intelligence and abilities cannot be improved upon (the "fixed mindset") often demonstrate academic alienation or withdrawal when faced with challenges or setbacks. On the other hand, learners who believe that intelligence can be improved through hard work and help from others (the "growth mindset") usually develop self-efficacy and exhibit resilience in the face of failures CITATION Dwe08 \l 1033 (Dweck). Educators should employ the growth mindset as a motivational tool because self-efficacy and resilience are essential facets in learning. Students with the growth mindset eventually outperform those with the fixed mindset in the long run. Process praise motivates learners to apply more effort when the learning material becomes difficult, set bigger goals for themselves, seek tougher challenges, and look at failures as occasions for learning. The transition from elementary to secondary school was one of my most difficult times in school. My math scores were consistently below average and my failure to succeed in the subject was a painful and disheartening experience. My confidence waned and I saw any effort in schoolwork as fruitless. I felt threatened by the success of others and my harmful deterministic view of the world would have continued into high school until a new math tutor started praising my work strategies and perseverance instead of my talents. I noticed that t...