970x125
As a college professor for over 30 years, I’ve watched the hyper-fetishization of the first-year experience. Do colleges and universities not also have an ethical responsibility to students, families, and the larger community to offer just as much deep and thoughtful planning and programming for college seniors? I believe institutions should think much more seriously about instituting what I’m calling “the Senior Launch” as an infrastructure of support for seniors to bookend the college experience.
While there are some colleges claiming to be doing something of the sort, they’re often advertised as, “Need a credit? Take this.” Essentially, that’s cheap filler. What I’m speaking of is something immersive and deep that extends outward as students develop a sense of community beyond college when on their own.
Designed to socialize students into the entirety of the college experience, first-year courses serve as a sort of incubator: a space with intentionality for faculty and staff to help students chart their growth and ensure they’re on a good path to success. So too, Senior Launch courses would be a sort of socialization into life after college as well as an incubator for reflecting on the college journey, envisioning future growth, and creatively and strategically nurturing new opportunities, mentoring, and networking.
Supporting the Senior Transition
After having individuated from families of origin to adjust to living at college, students in their senior year are once again leaving and individuating, this time from the community of the college. How might colleges and universities best support students at this tender time of transition as they strike out on their own?
Senior year is fraught with complicated emotions. Some students feel nostalgic, finally adjusted, settled, and wanting to remain cocooned on campus forever, while others are itching to get out, feeling they’ve outgrown the place. And many students are somewhere in between, knowing they’ll miss their friends and certain aspects of the spontaneity of social life that college affords while excited, uncertain, and nervous about all that lies ahead.
I see many graduates quickly stumble and become adrift. This is simultaneously a private trouble and a public, systemic issue. When I talk with students, what becomes clear is how lost so many of them feel.
It helps for students to have dedicated space to be reminded that during this time of individuation, there are thousands of other students like them scattering to different types of futures. Students share with me how much coaching they need for what we now commonly refer to as “adulting.” They’re hungry for life lessons and inspiration for leading their best lives. In response, I created a brand-new course called Adulting that has solidified for me why a Senior Launch is indeed essential. When people ask me what the class is about, I’ve boiled it down to this: it’s about creating a life worth living, about crafting the most meaningful, artful, bold, and vibrant life possible. Students have come of age more constricted, with so much engineered and pre-fabricated for them, from play dates to social media to AI. What they need are expansive opportunities for using their imagination, taking risks, making connections, and having real conversations.
What I’m proposing shouldn’t be confused with a senior seminar or senior capstone course, as those denote something more purely academic and research-focused within one’s major discipline. The Senior Launch differs significantly in that it is academic, social, emotional, relational, and fully transdisciplinary; it’s more like a College to Life Capstone. It’s the synthesis of everything from all the preceding years and drawing on these to craft the brightest future possible. The Senior Launch would help students cultivate what I think of as essential C’s: curiosity, creativity, connections, contemplation, critical and connected thinking, compassion, and communication.
Practical Skills and Lifelong Learning
The Senior Launch would have a component to support students trying things they’ve longed to do, even if that results in a less than stellar performance. Perhaps they’ve wanted to learn to dance, sail, paint, or learn sign language. The thirst for lifelong learning is the best thing we can help students pack for their journey beyond college. Practically speaking, it will set them apart from others on the job market, position them for greater success throughout their professional lives, and make them more interesting.
Students benefit from learning to balance out seriousness and concern for their futures with reveling in the present moment and some of the freedom college provides. These are huge lessons to take into one’s life beyond college as most of us experience the tug of future worries while wanting to savor the present moment. Balancing work and play are pivotal, and college is an ideal place to hone this. In our roles as faculty, staff, and administrators, we owe it to students to think this through with them.
Ideally, a Senior Launch would include community-connected experiences that support students in networking with people in their chosen field for opportunities to gather more information, to shadow them, and gain experience. This might begin with inviting intriguing speakers to classes and for campus-wide panels and events.
The Senior Launch helps students strengthen emotional intelligence, hone their own inner resources, and know how and when to find buoys. In the age of AI, we must push students to their farthest edge to consider how to craft an AI that matters—that is, what I call, an authentically intelligent life. An authentically intelligent life is one that is less reliant on and mediated by screens and instead guided by following one’s unique passions and capacities.
A Lasting Impact
The concept of the Senior Launch benefits more than seniors. Universities, too, would be building an even stronger alumni base. And that’s because a final life lesson worthy of being showcased in the Senior Launch is helping students as they come to the awareness that they’ll never live exactly this way again. The reality is that given life’s impermanence, things are always changing and we’re likely to feel that way many times in our lives, but there’s something so unique about the set-up of college that the anticipation of leaving it and the transition out is almost like no other.
A former student, Chris, told me, “I made sure to make the most of every minute because even back then, I knew one day I’d wish I could go back.” Chris’ remark reminds me of something powerful that’s inscribed on the campus of Miami University: “To think that in such a place, I led such a life.” Senior Launch programs would deepen and extend this sentiment even further, propelling students to live out the rest of their lives with that same spirit.
A version of this post also appears in HigherEdJobs.
