Personal Development: Reflection on Graduation and Personal Growth

Running Head: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Graduating from school is an event that brings in enormous changes in lives, and
releases students in a new kind of atmosphere which is both challenging and interesting. It is
an important stage of personal development, owing to the nature of changes. The few months
leading up to my graduation was a roller coaster, as I looked back at the past and tried to
relish as much as I could. In this essay, I will reflect on my graduation because it contributed
largely to my personal development in more ways than one.
Graduation was important and enlightening mainly because of the ‘Exosystem’ as
mentioned by Bronfenbrenner in his Ecological Systems Theory(Eriksson,
Ghazinour&Hammarström, 2018).This Exosystem, according to the Ecological Systems
Theory, is the level that contains various kinds of people and countless places that might
affect the development of an individual, directly or indirectly, although the individual may or
may not interact with them on a regular basis. It is the people I met and surrounded me, for so
many years and contributed at various times. Graduating was an emotional experience as I
realized that it meant countless separations (Ashiabi& O’Neal, 2016). I was moving away
from the comfort of home and my parents for college, my friends were shifting to different
places for their higher education, teachers were getting ready to sign our papers that meant
goodbye and an escape from school and most importantly, everyone else was caught up in a
frenzy that was borderline desperate to tick off our school time bucket list, amongst final
exams and college interviews (Tudge et al., 2016).
My people around me affected me a lot. There were people who were shifting to
different countries and I would pay attention to the details to weigh it against my plans. There
was a tennis player in our class who won a tennis championship and threw us all a party
which we attended and mingled. At the end of school, I made new friends although they were
present throughout my high school life, maybe because, even sometime back, I thought I had

2PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
all the time in the world with them. I got introduced to numismatics, by a girl I met at the
prom, and now am ordering in and collecting coins that belong to different parts in the world.
Teachers, were especially present as the epitomes of knowledge and it was because of
them, that I am departing with enormous amount of knowledge that I can actually implement
in both educational and personal sectors because they were focused on our all-round
development than being short sighted and purely education based.
My parents, who held an enormous space in my exosphere, as the two people who
were responsible for my future, were getting ready to cope with the changes, and seemed
concerned with my student loans, I realized that my father was both sad and joyful at the
thought of me staying apart, because he thinks that it builds character but is aware of the
difficulties that lie ahead. Post final exams we took a trip to Egypt, which was very
memorable, as we travelled and they told me about their college life, while we drank wine on
balconies overlooking the Pyramids. I felt very connected to them, and I knew I would miss
them a lot bit I had to stay strong to make them and myself proud in the long-term.
Social Relationships were focused on during this stage of psychosocial development
when the basic conflict was ‘Identity vs. Role Confusion’, according to Erik Erikson. Before
graduation, an unnerving question about what happens next is raised (Kroger, 2015). Which
had let to severe identity crisis. What is worse, was that I felt like everyone besides me had
sorted out their ambition despite having a fair idea about the plans I was willing to work on.
I was on a quest to achieve identity by getting over internal crisis, achieving self-
actualization and realizing my worth (Dacey, Travers & Fiore, 2007). A lot of my thoughts
was internalized because of the fear of being judged, I felt like I was not doing enough. The
spent most of the time revising and submitting papers which was taking a toll on me. Time
management was extremely important because despite everything I tried to stick to me