Student Learning and Development Reflection

From my experiences in undergrad as a resident assistant, orientation leader, and a first

year transition cohort leader, I entered this program with some experienced with students and

with some informal theories about how students learn and develop in college environments.

Many of these informal theories were influenced by my own experiences and the theories I

learned as an education major. I am very grateful for my background, as a lot of what I learned

studying secondary education seems to help inform my work as a student affairs practitioner.

My biggest take away from this course is a lot of theories have some pretty large gaps in

them. What I mean by this is that what might be true for middle class white male students might

not apply well with students of color or with different cultural backgrounds (ACPA, 2015). I am

now more aware of the limitations of theories and I now understand the incredible value of

learning more theories and learning how to implement those in my practice (ACPA, 2015). I

would say I have a lot of room to grow and improve in this regard. I wrote a synthesis paper on

the transfer student experiences at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. I chose this segment

of the student body because I was once a transfer student myself, and I know that transfer

students can struggle with the experience of switching institutions. I found a lot of anecdotal and

qualitative data to support my informal theories about transfer students, and I was able to see

how Schollsberg’s Transition Theory could be applied to the student’s experiences as well as

my own. However, upon reflection, I had one major shortcoming on that synthesis paper. The

students I interviewed where both white males, of middle class standing, hetrosexual, and from

very supportive families. I am also a white, middle class, heterosexual male. So their stories and

experiences were very similar to my own.

My informal theory and my understanding of Transition Theory are “biased” because of

that. What I mean to say is that currently, my only lense to look at transfer students is through
the lense of a white male student. I would, if I had the opportunity to do so, absolutely love to

seek out and speak with a more diverse range of students. Students of color, female identifying

students, international students, and LGBTQ+ students all have different experiences, and in

order for my to best improve my practices, I need to seek out those stories and listen to them so

that I can better understand how to help more students.

So in future practice, I need to be keenly aware of how my own understanding of theory

is lacking, and I will take every opportunity to expand my toolbox of theories. The experiences I

had might be similar to the students I interviewed for that synthesis paper, and the advice I

might give to those students might work for them, but not for all the students I may interact with.