The College Years

This is the first of what I assume will be several musings on the role of undergraduate education. Two things bring it to mind--today is my spouse's birthday, and we met in college. How did we manage to make a life choice at that age? I am still baffled by that, but we did. The other is that my third son just closed out his applications to colleges, and so I am in the midst of watching my progeny go through this important developmental process.
Erickson defined the stages that humans go through in maturing, and while the late adolescence-early adulthood task is to develop intimate relationships, in many cases American youth (both in my time and now) are still struggling with identity. The task is to define oneself independently, aside from one's family and into the community as a whole. I find it somewhere between ironic and humorous that Erikson thought this was over by age 18--in a lot of ways, I have never quite finished this developmental task. I am still not sure what my ultimate goals for life are, and they have definitely changed on a relatively frequent basis. Which at my age means about every decade. I don't think I am alone in this. I think that the first step in the process starts in high school but extends into the college years.
The barriers that present themselves are numerous. Going from almost absolute control, especially when it comes to curfew, and then the lack thereof, is opening floodgates for many kids, and it is hard to regain control as necessary. But there is also an expectation that fairly early on one should know their life path, or at least the neighborhood they want to end up in. That is a real challenge. The quality of university education is excellent, but the high school experience is significantly more varied, and many colleges are not equipped to provide that guidance. I am reminded of the wise words of my child psychiatrist friend, David Kaye: The 20's are the most important decade for parental involvement.