Have you ever considered the changes that are taking place and will take place in your life as a college student? Has it ever occurred to you that your professors and other school personnel have certain goals for your growth and maturity during your college years? Has it ever dawned on you that certain developmental changes will occur in your life as you move from adolescence to young adulthood? Though college students seldom think about them, key changes will probably happen to them during their college years.

During this time, students are going through an identity crisis and are endeavoring to find out who they are and what their strengths and weaknesses are. They have, of course, plenty of both. It is important to know how people perceive themselves as well as how other people perceive them. According to Piers and Landau, in an article discussing the theories of Erik H. Erikson in International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences (1979), identity is determined by genetic endowment (what is inherited from parents), shaped by environment, and influenced by chance events. People are influenced by their environment and, in turn, influence their environment. How people see themselves in both roles is unquestionably a part of their identity.

While students are going through an identity crisis, they are becoming independent from their parents yet are probably still very dependent on them. This independence/dependence struggle is very much a part of the later adolescence stage.