Having been a community college student before being enrolled at Slippery Rock, I’ve had the opportunity to experience being a student in different environments. This, coupled with me having friends who went to other schools, friends who shared their experiences, meant I had a wealth of insight to pan some wisdom from. Although I’ve noticed a remarkable number of differences between CCAC and SRU, I’ve observed a few constants that are present in any institution, and, in every student: tenacity and resourcefulness.
These two skills are indispensable on campus and off, as they are the backbone for any successful individual. Whether one is going to school for an Associate’s Degree or a Bachelor’s Degree, or even going to graduate school, these skills are the most important to possess because alone they’re invaluable, and when complementing a more fleshed-out skill set, are even more so.
While tenacity and resourcefulness may have been factors in one’s success in high school, they matter even more in college; in the former, a strict adherence to the rules and a rehashing of recycled information was encouraged, in college, it’s quite the opposite, with freethinking and novelty being advocated.
Why these two matter so much is simple, and I’ll start with tenacity. For starters, tenacity shouldn’t be confused for work ethic. While tenacious people can be hard workers, they shouldn’t be limited to solely that.
Tenacity is about endurance, about being able to withstand all that life has to throw at you. Tenacity is not so much retaliation as it is defense. To be tenacious, requires one to be exemplary, to want to better him or herself. Granted, ambition does falter, and lives become busy, but tenacious people manage to weather the gauntlet of responsibility and take the hits as they come.
Resourcefulness is fantastic for the opposite reasons. Tenacity is all about endurance, so that makes resourcefulness all about calculated response(s). A resourceful student is a creative one. And yes, creativity transcends artistic pursuits, they don’t hold a monopoly on creativity. One can be creative in science or in business, or in any capacity really. I mentioned the word “novel” earlier. One surefire way to prove that a college education is worth pursuing is that being educated enables one to think outside the box and make their mark on a particular field. Being resourceful is also valuable when it comes to getting work done, as it benefits someone, even if they slack a little bit, or are struggling.
Not to mention that any teacher loves having students who have the ability to do a stellar job, even if the odds are against them.
Although one can survive with just these skills, it’s best to be more well-rounded and have other skills to help buoy you. As long as these skills are adopted and implemented appropriately, then everything else will follow suit. Any graduate (upcoming included) can attest to this. Just maintain the balance.
