Personal Responsibility
Blake Davis
Foundations for General Education and Professional Success/ GEN200
September 29, 2014
Jason Rodarte
Personal Responsibility
It’s the first day of an individual’s college career; they’re sitting in a lecture hall filled with excitement with the new adventure a head of them, yet a sense of fear as to the unknown. As the professor enters the room and begins their introduction they pass out the syllabus. While skimming over the syllabus the professor announces for all to turn to the final page of the document. The page is titled Student Agreement; the professor explains that all students are required to thoroughly read the syllabus and this agreement, sign it, and return it at the next class meeting. While reading the agreement the professor states that this agreement will be the students first step in personal responsibility in college, a continuation in their journey of maturing to be able to make it in the world around them, and empower themselves to strive. So what exactly is personal responsibility? As Haskins (2009) states, personal responsibility is the willingness to both accept the importance of standards that society establishes for individual behavior and to make strenuous personal efforts to live by those standards. But personal responsibility also means that when individuals fail to meet expected standards, they do not look around for some factor outside themselves to blame. Brown (2009) defines personal responsibility as responsibility assumed by a person rather than a representative and as being solely responsible for something or someone without the help or intervention of another. In fact though personal responsibility means all of these due to the term personal responsibility being a vague term that can encompass many meanings with many situations. A question that comes to an individuals mind when presented with personal responsibility is what can it do for them? Individuals can strengthen their sense of empowerment as they achieve goals/task either assigned for them or those that they set for themselves can use personal responsibility. As they continue to achieve further goals, faith in their abilities will only grow. Even if faced when defeat, individuals can use personal responsibility to learn and grow stronger. As Scarbrough (2001) states, personal responsibility becomes “synonymous with personal success” (p. 273). In order to understand ones self and the role that personal responsibility plays in their academic lives, individuals should create a personal responsibility action plan. This plan should consist of two separate portions. The first part of the action plan should be a personal agreement/statement that relates to an individual’s accountability and ways to sustain it. The second part of the plan should be a step-by-step plan to achieve any goals/task. When it comes to the first part of this action plan, there are several methods an individual can use to sustain their accountability and mature in the process. One method, and maybe one of the best was to learn valuable lessons, is for an individual to admit to and accept responsibility for any mistakes made. This allows for one to learn from what went wrong and ways to correct in future situations. Another method is to decrease ones level of procrastination. Procrastination can be one of an individual’s worst enemies and can lead to unneeded stress. Being able to set goals and complete them on time can lead to an increase in an individual’s self-esteem and empowerment. Avoiding procrastination can also increase others trust in an individual and show professors/supervisors that they’re dependable. This sense of accountability can be used by college students and serve as a powerful tool for motivation when students create goals, whether short-term or long-term. The success of completing established goals encourages students to continue down a set path toward other goals; this in combination with