Flandra Williams-Grim
GEN200
December 23, 2012
Instructor, Tobi Robinson
Personal Responsibility
Personal responsibility plays an important role in defining who we are. Taking responsibility for one’s children, a spouse, being an employee, being a citizen or even the responsibility of education in a sense could be quite overwhelming. There are many factors that contribute to a student’s success. However, personal responsibility is the most essential component to a student being successful in college. Having success is taking control of and practicing your personal responsibility.
The definition of personal responsibility according to Dictionary.com, responsibility is “the state or fact of being responsible” (2010). Personal is defined as “intended for use by one person:” and “done in person without the intervention of another” (2010). According to what it means to me, personal responsibility has accountability, choices, success, failure, happiness, consequences to adhere to and the ability to delay self-gratification. Personal responsibility appeals to me heavily because I have had to be personally responsible all of my life. I am who I am in life because of choices.
When practicing personal responsibility, you constantly have to improve yourself. A mirrored perception of one’s self. You have to regularly check yourself and put things back in to perspective. It’s easy to get off track and follow what others are doing. Reflection is the best sense of personal responsibility. One specific area of improvement for any student would be time management. Accounting for me, time management will make me or break me! According to Ellis (2009), “one powerful way to achieve any goals are to periodically assess your progress in meeting it.” Time management is sometimes the deterrent. Determining your purpose in education plays an integral role for college success. Personal responsibility as a student pursuing higher education is a