Leadership skills for College Success by Caroline

Leadership skills for College Success by Caroline - March 2015 Scholarship Essay

If you want to be successful at anything in life, you need to have leadership skills. At college no one will be there to help you. No one is going to tell you to finish your homework or to get to class on time, you have to become a leader for yourself.

Responsibility is a huge leadership skill, because when you are a leader you are responsible for your team’s actions, not just your own. You have to make sure everyone is doing what they are doing and in turn make sure you are prepared and ready. If you are not responsible in college your grades will suffer and so will you.

An example, in high school most teachers still remind their students about deadlines, and even when those deadlines have past some generous teachers may give a student a few more days to turn it in but with a deduction to their score. I have heard that in college there is no such thing as late work, because it is either in the professors hands by the deadline or in the trash. I feel you have to have a level of responsibility in doing your own work, and a leader must always get their job done.

Communication is a very effective leadership skill that is well needed in college. A leader needs to be able to say exactly what they need from their team and to communicate properly with others. If you are not willing to speak up, than college life will be hard.

Most high school teachers will sit you down and talk to you about your grades if they are slipping, however professors won’t baby a student as a high school teacher would. If you feel your grades are poor you have to communicate to your professor about how to improve your grade or about how you may need extra help in their class and require tutoring. You have to be polite and professional when talking to someone you want help from, so being a good communicator will make it easier to transverse what you need in a proper way.

To be a good leader you need to stay positive. When things are looking down a leader will always keep their head up and think their way around the situation.

If a student has a positive attitude in college they will most likely have many happy memories about the campus they went to. A positive student will tend to have cleaner essays and a better grade, as well as a happier relationship with peers. A student with a negative outlook in their college years is less likely to succeed and have less friends, as most people do not want to spend their time with someone who is negative.

Are leadership skills necessary for college success? I say they are. In college students are independent individuals that need to become leaders for themselves and take charge of their own lives. To be able to succeed in college, a student must be a leader who knows what they have to do and does it on their own without anyone telling them when and where to do so. In college the professors treat students as adults, and an adult must lead their own lives to ever be successful.