xxii Introduction Welcome to college and Approaching College with Purpose! Chances are, you’ve heard a lot about what to expect from your first year of college, from friends and family, as well as from teachers and coaches, who wanted to share their experi- ences, offer advice, and tell you what college will be like. But now that you’re here, we want to say: Your college experience is your college experience, and nothing about your experience will be fixed or predetermined. This textbook is written with that in mind, and we called this book Approaching College with Purpose because we want to encourage you to own your experience. Your experi- ence, your goals, and your habits will all belong to you because you will shape them. This is an exciting and daunting idea, and we are honored and privileged to guide you through this. Throughout this text, you will find multiple opportunities to reflect, journal, converse with classmates, and ask questions of yourself and others. This is intended to deepen your experience with the textbook and help you determine “the how” of your college experience. How are you going to engage with the peo- ple around you? How are you going to take advantage of the resources offered? How are you going to approach each new day and each new semester? How will you grow through these new experiences? How will you meet disappointments and learn from failure? Your answers to these questions will help you define your purpose in this college experience and reveal your expectations for how it will transform you. As you engage with this book, both in and out of class, you will be asked time and time again to identify what you are bringing to any situation—your strengths, fears, preconceived notions, and goals. Identifying what you bring to the table allows you to build on the valuable assets you already have and discover what ideas or mindsets might be holding you back. Also, knowing yourself will help you approach each new situation with a strategy that is tailored to you as an indi- vidual, rather than based on the approaches of those around you, or ideas you have about how you should do things.