Leadership Skills in College Students by Laura

Leadership Skills in College Students by Laura - March 2015 Scholarship Essay

John Erksine once said "in simplest terms, a leader is one who knows where he wants to go, and gets up, and goes." When I see this quote he screams college. Is college a requirement? No. Did someone say to you when you graduated high school, the next step is college, it was a law you have to go, and if you didn't a truancy officer would come pick you up and you would go to jail? No. This means, that as a college student you already have leadership skills. You made the independent choice that you would get up, discover a dream, and pursue it. Therefore, the answer to the question "are leadership skills necessary for college success," is yes. Yes it is necessary because you have to posses leadership skills if you are going to get out of bed and pursue a degree. Now, let's move on to something more in depth. Are they necessary for college success? The answer to this is also yes.

In college you will find that you are now your own person. You don't have your parents waking you up in the morning, buying clothes, fixing breakfast, giving you gas money, etc. When you become a college student you are now responsible for yourself and if you are not a leader you will never survive. Leaders are independent people that make the choice not to lay in bed and have dreams but to get up out of bed and pursue them.

Now that you have made it out of bed to attend class, you will also find that the classroom is very different that what you know as a classroom. There isn't a bulletin board with a generic quote inspiring you, there isn't a teacher at the front of the room making sure you are having a good day, and there definitely isn't someone who makes sure you turned your homework in. In college, you have to be a leader who is going to have time management skills, drive, and the willingness to accept others who have different beliefs than you. This is a key to being a college student and a leader.

Overall, leadership qualities are necessary for college success but everyone of us already have these skills. Some people are naturally leaders, some are naturally bossy, and some of us fall in between but in the end each college student is already a leader of their own lives by making a conscious decision to pursue a degree.