Self-Authorship Theory is a constructivist development theory from Marcia Baxter Magolda that can take many different twists and turns depending on individual characteristics, contexts and situations, and challenges and supports experienced by an individual (Patton, Renn, Guido, & Quaye, 2016). The main principle of this theory is that one is moving away from blindly following external formulas towards a crossroads that leads one to self-authorship. For me, and I’m sure many, reflecting on my college experience for me is synonymous with reflecting on my path to self-authorship.
College for me was not really an option. It was a cultural mandate. Although I individuated from my parents on many fronts prior to graduating high school, and I was taught that I could ultimately choose my own path, college did not seem to be one of those things that I could choose whether or not to do. It was more of an expectation. Coming from a lower-middle class suburban white family, and my brother and I being first generation college students, it was a mark of success for both of us to be sent off to uni. While my brother is five years older than me, his college success story got off to a pretty rocky start. Me being the goody-two-shoes of the family meant that a lot of weight was resting on my shoulders to have my college success be much more traditional. So, I went off to community college for a year, get my Gen Ed courses out of the way, and applied to a few 4-year schools thinking that I’d go wherever I got the most money. As a pretty average high school student, from a pretty average background, of course, I got next to nothing from anywhere, and ended up going where my boyfriend and his friends where going.
I think that my story is a familiar one for first-generation middle-class students. There’s an expectation to go with the flow, and follow in those “external formulas” as Baxter Magolda calls them (2009, p. 6). External formulas are those things outside of ourselves that we let guide us when we are not quite sure how to guide ourselves. They are the voices of our parents and our communities saying “Go to college. All successful people go to college.” and “Study Business. Business is practical.” Although there may be lots of room outside of these external formulas to find your own voice, before we know our own voices even exist we rely on these external formulas to guide us. So, like most of the kids from my high school graduating class, I let the rhythm section of the community I lived in, guide me on down the path.
College was not really for me. But, all throughout college, that did not really seem to matter. I struggled socially, and academically in a way that led to some pretty terrible disasters. Although I made it through on the prescribed “4-year plan” despite transferring, changing majors three times (one of which was the beginning of me following my internal voice), and having a job, two internships, and a 3.7 in my final major – I did not feel like I was any better off in the end. I had had a few good experiences in my senior year with my internships and started feeling less like a square peg in a round hole, but when I graduated I did not know what I was going to do with my life, I had no idea what my degree had prepared me for, and I did not want to leave the comfort of my discomfort. So, instead of moving on, I just stayed. After I graduated, I took a summer class, and then a fall class so that I could stay employed on campus. I needed the voices of the adults around me to keep telling me what I should be doing. Finally, as the spring semester started and I signed up for yet another random class so that I could remain employed, circumstances in my personal life hit the point where I could no longer sit idlily by waiting for someone to tell me what to do. I withdrew from the class at the end of February, and by the beginning of March, I was home living with my parents again.
Now – moving home after graduation may not seem like a step in the right direction of listening to what Baxter Magolda calls my “internal voice” (2009, p. 7), but it was exactly that. I think that looking back, though, this moving home was the beginning of a long period of “Crossroads” for me (2009, p. 6). The way that Baxter Magolda speaks to the crossroads seems more like a moment in time, but for me, my crossroads happened over the span of the next year and a half. I had a lot of rough patches, but on the map of life that is the journey to self-authorship, these brief visits to what she calls “the shadow lands” (2009, p. 5) are normal and necessary phases – these deviations from listening to, and trusting my internal voice – where a sign of growth. I moved out, got a job…got another job…met someone…got another job…and came to what I’ve decided is the True Crossroads in my life. With the confidence that I had gained in listening to myself over that year and a half, I came to a point where I was either going to pack my bags and leave on an adventure with an unknown destination – or I was going to stay put and focus on a career, my family, and do what was expected of me as a small-town middle-class girl. My peers had returned home from college, started getting married, buying houses, and having babies. The decision between letting myself be guided by external formulas or listening to my inner voice was upon me – and I choose…me. Unbeknownst to myself, I had not only been listening to, and cultivating my internal voice, I’d begun trusting it, and shaping my own philosophy about how my life should be lived for ME. Baxter Magolda calls this “building an internal foundation” (2009, p. 8).
I woke up one day and told everyone that I was moving to Los Angeles. No – I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t have a place to live, or a route to get there, or a job. No, I didn’t have a savings – but…I knew that it’s what I had to do. I knew that what I held true for myself was a life of adventure, and seeing the world. What I valued was experience, and being different, and marching to the beat of my own rhythm section – not that of the community that I grew up in. I had been slowly refining the vision for my life, and it was not to stay in my small town and find a home with a white-picket-fence, and have 1.5 (or is it 2.5?) children. My values were different. And so, I chased my own dream, across the country, with absolutely no prospects or plans, and much to the chagrin of my parents and nearly all of the people around me.
What happened when I got there is that I started to trust myself and my skills. I applied for a bajillion jobs, and landed a few weird ones (that make for great stories) before landing a job at UCLA. I was young, and in a super foreign place, but I had mentors, and the support of my family from afar throughout this time - I was still in and out of Baxter Magolda’s (2009) shadow lands, but I was well on my way to self-authorship – to shaping myself based on my own vision, values, and beliefs. Graduating college and moving to Los Angeles combined to make one giant crossroads in my life. There were countless challenges, but I started to figure out who I was, and how I fit into the world. I’m still working on this every day – well into my 30s, but I’m doing so on sound footing now. The person that I was when I left for LA at 24 is still the person I am today – but the edges are no longer as rough. I laid that foundation for myself then and have been building upon it ever since.
As I continue to reflect now on my current experience in graduate school, I have to be frank – it has been interesting, to say the least, returning to school after all this time. When I graduated with my bachelor’s I fully intended to one day go on for an advanced degree, but the timing never felt right. I had had such a difficult time in school the first time around, that I never felt ready to throw myself into that fire again. I knew though that I would need a master’s to really get ahead in my career, and I think that that particular pressure was really akin to listening to external formulas in my youth. I wanted to take this challenge on when I personally felt ready, not just when it was expected of me.
Now as I think about where I am in my life, the most difficult part of being back in school is being faced with many changes to the educational system, and to the caliper of student – both for the better! – but still tough for me to acclimate to. Students in my program are motivated and driven and taking on incredible amounts of internships, GAships, committees, attending and presenting at conferences – some are even running their own conferences! It is a lot to be intimidated by – and I have not felt unsure of myself in my career in a very long time. Up against these young students who are arming themselves with the same knowledge at 23 as I am at 36 with 15 years of work experience tells me that these students are light-years ahead of where I was at their age, and will be light-years ahead of where I am now.
I have worked very hard to become the professional that I am in higher ed, and I have made a good reputation for myself at my administrative level. I feel though that coming into this program a lot of my professional experience seems almost inconsequential and undervalued. I find myself wondering what I have been doing for all of these years if the information in this program is so critical. Was I just bumbling around looking silly with my practical experience and no formal education on Student Development Theory? How could I have worked at a Land Grant Institution without really understanding the history of what that means? What has surprised and disappointed me the most while getting my master’s is that I’ve found myself second-guessing every move I’ve made, every skill I believed that I had, and every interaction that seemed so paramount to my lived experience.
As I enter my last semester, however, I have come to an understanding with those fears. I’ve tempered the surprise, and the disappointment with the comfort of knowing that being a student again is a change. It’s a transition. It’s growth – and growth can be very uncomfortable, but without displacing ourselves and pushing ourselves out of our comfort-zones, no growth can occur. What I know now is that all of what I came into this program with IS valid, and IS important – and so too is the history, and theory, and the foundation being provided by this program. With these combined, I know that I am – and will continue to be – a better practitioner. For me, having been a Student Affairs professional for the past 15 years, I can say that I have an innate understanding of how to help students become their own self-authors. Since not everyone is coming into the field of higher education with this ability, it is critical that there are in fact people in every Student Affairs office that are actively trying to promote the growth of all students. I think that being able to continually reflect on my own self-authorship is something that I was not doing enough of coming into the program, and is probably one of the greatest take-aways for myself, and for my praxis. I'm excited for the future, and I'm so fortunate to have all of the experiences I have - new and old - to help guide the way.
Cheers,
Brianna
References:
Baxter Magolda, M. (2009). Authoring your life: Developing an internal voice to navigate life’s challenges. Stylus.
Patton, L.D., Renn, K.A., Guido, F.M., & Quaye, S.J. (2016). Student Development in College:
Theory, Research and Practice (3rd ed.). Jossey-Bass.