Formal Self-Analysis
ELRC 7612: Student Development Theory
Dr. Kourtney Gray
October 9, 2020
To begin this formal self-analysis, I’d like to outline the main points I’d like to dive into. First, I’ll go back to who I am and where I came from, how my development of the basic make of me and where I’m from (i.e. white Christian woman, privileged, heterosexual etc.) affected my growth. Then, I’ll touch on how college made a large effect on that part of me. Lastly, I’ll touch on the real specifics of what college experiences attributed to my growth and change. Overall, through all of the differences that came through my life, it’s important to note that consistently I was really thoughtful of what was presented toward me and it led me to find myself and to my place in life that I’m really pleased with.
To put it simply, I’m Michala Pollock. I was born to a white suburban family, I’m the youngest of three and the only girl of the children in my family. I’ve always identified as a woman and as heterosexual. However, sexuality has always been something I don’t feel like was often explained to me, but it was never shamed in our household to believe something different. I lacked nothing when it came to my abilities. I came from a family that developed privilege. My parents both came from middle-class and poor family lines. However, they lead their parenting as wanting to provide opportunities that they didn’t have. So, I grew up in the middle/upper class. As I grew older, I was definitely in the upper class because of the career growth my parents were also experiencing.
Probably the largest factor in shaping my identity was religion. My dad came from a religious background – his father was a pastor and all the men in his father’s family were pastors and had been for almost centuries. So, from the start religion was a part of my life. Going to church at least twice a week was the norm. As I was growing up, I really appreciated church and loved the friends I had there. It led me to go to church camp in the summers and to find a really peaceful, true relationship with God. But of course, as I grew up it began to get more complicated. I felt like the church I was going to with my family didn’t grow me and it felt like it was under really poor leadership. This led me to make more Christian friends at school and to find where they were going to church and communing with God. While I felt like I was getting better experiences at churches, I was also coming under a very conservative Christian wing without even really knowing it. The search for faith on my own really tore my family up as they saw going to church as a family affair, while for me it was deeply personal. This led to us having conversations about where we wanted to go as a family and it eventually led us to leave the church because of the way they handled me leaving. I can tell, to this day this has made a large effect on my mom and her faith. The church we had been going to was really hurtful to her and it led her to really struggle with faith and the church. For myself, I would find places where I could commune with God, but it felt very big and conservative spheres, but yet places I could experience God.
Going to college was really helpful in my faith. I was able to find my place, believe what I wanted, and had an amazing community through that. However, I noticed I felt really unknown at home. Because I took the plunge to separate myself, it felt like everyone thought I was “religious” and I didn’t feel seen or heard at home, through my family. It wasn’t until after college when I was out on my own and went through therapy to really learn myself for who I am and to know who my family is and to feel more confident in that. I now have grown more to unpack what I grew up learning and see for my own self my own opinions of faith and it more aligns with where my family has found themselves. This push and pull of church and faith and church with my family really created me into who I am today. It’s such a large part of me and the way I see the world and where my passions come from.
Overall, my general make-up of where I came from had a large effect of the growth I endured. First, being heterosexual I didn’t endure a lot of the hardships and acceptance that those in the LGBTQ+ do. I was born as a white woman in a white family which really brought me up in privilege in the world. I was born to a family that was really privileged and had goals and prioritized friendships and relationships. However, growing up as the only girl in my family I definitely felt like I had to always prove myself. I struggled with feeling pretty because I was very much so a tomboy growing up with all boys. Feeling the need to prove myself as a woman really turned into a struggle for me through high school and took a lot of self-reflection in college. After college, I really had to find myself without any ties to others and had to discover my own worth and not be afraid of showing it. I definitely am aware of the privilege I had growing up and still do, but I’m thankful for the space I’ve had to reflect on this and to see what I can do with this privilege.
A part of the reason I was able to easily reflect on this privilege and the way I was brought up was because of my college experience. I am so thankful for the college experience I received. I didn’t go too far for college; I went to a small liberal art school, one hour and a half away from home. I went to college with two of my best friends from high school which began easier than it was for others because then I was already able to jump start the community aspect of college. I thought I wanted to major in psychology and become a counselor, but then I was very interested in sociology. After that, I finally found business management and minored in sociology. It took me a bit to find that I really loved people and I loved organization and entrepreneurship. It took so many conversations with so many different people to decide on this decision for a major. When I began college, I was really naïve and just stuck in my lane about how I saw things and really was just looking for others who thought like me. When I was heading toward graduation, I found that I loved learning from others, meeting others, and just accepting others where they were at. As well, I felt way more confident in who I was and where I was going. Brown talks of this understanding of wisdom as “Four conditions directly or indirectly impact the core learning-from-life process to the development of wisdom: orientation to learning, experiences, interactions with others, and the environment,” this outlines the overall growth I found in myself through college, the wisdom that was learned through experience, interaction and the environment (Brown, 139, 2004).
When I began, I was much more scared, confused, lost, and lonely. I wasn’t as empowered as a woman either. Minoring in sociology and having strong women in my life in my community was a game changer for me in college. I was able to come out of college so much more confident and with the ability to see my strengths. Studying sociology through college I was able to see so much more of the oppression women went through, and more so, black women. This idea helped me to find a better result of myself and how to reconcile this very traditional and conservative view of women I had heard from churches. This also led me to discuss this with my mom and find that she’s such a strong woman and to become a mentor to me in how to become a strong woman. Without this experience, I wouldn’t have the better relationship I have with my mom or the growth in myself to even be where I am in my career now. “Particular individuals can have a specific, significant impact on a student’s development of wisdom,” though I struggled – my mom eventually became such a source of wisdom and resilience for me (Brown, 140, 2004). Though it started as a hard relationship that was teaching me wisdom it has become one that’s transformed into a safe space that’s about challenge, understanding, love, and quality. Without this relationship, I wouldn’t have been able to reconcile so much of this idea of womanhood in my life.
As well, I found that I am also really privileged because I’m heterosexual. Being a sociology minor really sheds light on the inconsistencies we have in our society from being straight to being a part of the LGBTQ+ community. When I began college, I wasn’t aware of the degree that this was in our society. As well, racism was something I thought was dead and gone and just wrong. I was enlightened to learn about systemic racism and the injustices that are still happening today. I also looked at my peers who had scholarships and still worked jobs while a full-time student and really couldn’t spend a lot of money and saw the large privilege that was going to college. This really woke me up to see the social class that I was coming from. It’s something that I still take for granted today, but I’m definitely very aware of it, rather than when I began college, I was much less aware of all of these factors.
There are many different factors that I attribute to this growth. First, my community always has been huge for me. Through high school, to college, to now – without the community I’ve had I would’ve had a much harder time acclimating, dealing with feelings, my opinions, my doubts, and just having a space to process. While in college, the community I had was vital. It taught me so much about what healthy relationships could look like, what love looked like, how to just be there for people and to be authentic. Next, I would say the influence of faith for me was really huge throughout my life. Though it has changed in ways over the years it’s something that grounded me, given me hope, brought me a lot of peace, and most importantly, brought me back to myself. Lastly, and it may have been the largest impact in college especially was sociology classes and concepts. When I first took my intro to sociology class I was awakened and really made aware of all of the habits of our society and ways we needed to grow. This invigorated me to want to use my strengths in business for more ethical practices, which eventually landed me here in getting my graduate degree in higher education. Without the sociology classes, I really don’t know where I’d be, how I’d see the world, or even how I would create community now. I’m much more aware of adding many different voices to my community and giving voice to the voiceless. After taking these classes I continued my growth by reading authors and learning to understand more what was going on in our world and politics.
I’m really thankful for the experiences I had and will continue to have because of the things I can change and cannot change, but I’m thankful for education and the awareness that was brought to me. College, my circumstances, where I came from, and who I am all lead to where I am now. I hope I continue reflecting like this and seeing the growth I’ve made and where I have more growth to come. “Life knowledge is evident in a student’s understanding of what can or cannot be changed,” this is what I’ve learned really, is that there are things that may or may not be able to be changed, but it’s up to us how we learn to grow from them and see how it’s life teaching us something, but not about us or our worth (Brown, 142, 2004). And I’m thankful for that.
References
Brown, S. C. (2004). Learning Across the Campus: How College Facilitates the Development of Wisdom. Journal of College Student Development, 45(2), 134-148.
Michala Pollock's Higher Ed Master's Portfolio 