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I had the opportunity to listen to Susie-Baker Cole who is the Associate Provost for student’s Academic Success and Engagement. Susie first began her speech with a little background information. She first attended University of Oregon, finished her degree at Washington State, and she went on to graduate with a PHD in French Literature from Yale University. During her college years Susie had looked at her sister as a mentor and shared about how she had found herself extremely interested in her Western Civilization course and how hard she was working and her sister said, “You don’t need to do all that, back off, and you can easily get by.” Susie told us that in that moment she took her sisters advice and became disengaged. About two and a half years into schooling Susie dropped out because she didn’t know her purpose for attending school anymore.

From this story Susie had two lessons. First, be careful about the messages and advice you are allowing to affect you like she allowed her sisters to. And instead of following the passion she had for history class she went along with something somebody else said and it resulted in her not following through with something that could have been wonderful. And a person is only going to get the experience and transformation they want out of college if they allow themselves to be passionate about something. The point was to not idly let this experience pass you by, but claim your education. Second, students get the most when they engage in those moments of passion like her interest in her history class. Individuals need to listen to those moments because no one knows where that passion might lead them.

One of her lessons outside of this story was that a major isn’t the only focus a student needs to have on campus. The purpose of college is to explore and experience who a person can be. It’s to take full advantage of the Bacc. Core classes. These classes present the skills to make good decisions,...