The Skills That Define a Leader and a Successful College Career by Matthew

The Skills That Define a Leader and a Successful College Career by Matthew - March 2015 Scholarship Essay

I think most would say that leadership skills are necessary for college success though their reasoning may differ from mine. I feel that leadership skills are necessary because without having leadership skills, you become a follower and this can be very dangerous in college. For a lot of kids, going to college is their first time away from home, and that first taste of freedom can take them down some tumultuous paths. It is this sense of freedom, this being away from parents and rules that make having leadership skills very necessary for college success. To see why leadership skills are necessary, I think it is necessary to define what skills make a leader.

In my mind the most important skill for a leader to have is confidence. In fact I would take this one step farther and say that having confidence means that one has a well defined image of who they are. This confidence is absolutely necessary to overcome the peer pressure and tempting choices that can present themselves in college. It never fails that when you have a test coming up or a project with an approaching deadline that you will get that phone call, email, text or Facebook invite from a friend telling you about this awesome party or event. If you lacked confidence, you might be tempted to forego your assignments or studying to go to this party so you could “fit in”. This lack of confidence could then perpetuate leading to the point where you find yourself more concerned with social events than your studies. Unless you are a genius this will likely result in poor grades, a loss of scholarships, or perhaps lost confidence from your parents who are footing the bill. With this, your whole college experience can disintegrate.

The second skill that I believe defines a leader is commitment. Even if you are self-confident and you turn down the social events to instead focus on studying or working on assignments you can still be faced with some tremendous obstacles. These obstacles could be financial. Perhaps you lack the means to pay for all your school and have to take out student loans. The thought of this debt, especially for someone who comes from meager means, can be debilitating. Due to this, they convince themselves that it is not worth the debt and they drop out. The obstacles could be academic. Perhaps you run into a certain subject or course that makes you doubt your abilities to complete your degree. Without commitment, the distractions or obstacles that college presents can easily overwhelm.

A final skill that I believe defines a leader and is necessary for college success is honesty. All universities have an academic code of conduct. These codes of conduct are typically pretty similar and what they boil down to is doing the work yourself and giving credit to others when necessary. Bottom line is that if you get caught cheating, you will likely be expelled from the school. Moreover, if you are cheating to get the grade just so you can get a piece of paper, then you have missed the purpose of college altogether. Yes the purpose of college is to earn a degree, but there is a key word in that sentence, “earn”. If you cheat your way through college then you neither demonstrate your ability to learn or lead and you will lack the skills required to be successful in industry.

To me these are the main characteristics and skills that define a leader. The lack of any of them can spell doom to your college career. As such, I think it is obvious that leadership skills are very much necessary to be successful in college.