The first post in a series featuring undergraduate student voices reflecting on their experiences of vocation and calling.
As an undergraduate student, one of the most rewarding experiences I had was helping a peer navigate an uncertain future they weren’t yet able to envision fully. As they discerned their potential career, they struggled to start this process and to consider everything needed as they tried to make an informed choice. They were aware of the impact their decision would have on where they might work, what kind of life they would live, the possibility of having a family, and future educational pursuits. I sympathized with their challenge and was pleased to offer as much support and guidance as I could; I had been in a similar situation just a few years prior, but this time I had a better sense of where to start.
I was able to support my friend because of my role as a NetVUE student ambassador on my campus during my junior and senior years. In this role, I provided information and resources to my peers, scheduled events and speakers, and worked with faculty to share the importance of thinking about vocation with their students and walking with them on their vocational journey. A focus on vocation and calling can provide a critical foundation that helps us as students find purpose and meaning in our lives. Being an ambassador allowed me to help other students navigate the questions that accompany the discernment of our vocations, and I was drawn to this role because my sense of vocation includes helping others achieve what I learned Aristotle called eudaimonia, or the good life.
Yet starting these discussions is often challenging. Engaging peers in conversations about vocation or calling can seem abstract or overly existential, and students might not see the relevance or feel an immediate connection to these conversations. In my own vocational exploration, I discovered that, by reframing the conversation to focus on values, we can achieve some of the same goals while being more effective and accessible.
I arrived at this perspective naturally, but unintentionally. In high school, I created a life plan that aimed at a military career and based my decisions on that goal. I decided that I would become a cadet at Norwich University, the nation’s oldest senior military college, and applied as a mechanical engineering major to streamline my path toward a contract and career through the ROTC program. My first minor setback came the summer before college, when I quietly changed my major.
But then a major setback occurred during “Rook Week,” a simulated boot camp that new students participate in the week before classes start at Norwich. As this week progressed, I began to question whether I truly wanted to pursue a military career and the life it requires. By the middle of the week, I knew the answer was no. As a result, I transitioned to civilian student status while remaining at Norwich; and even though this change was simply logistical, it was a frightening vocational one. Within a few months, I found myself in a completely different major and role on campus—but most challenging, I was left with no sense of direction. The life plan that I had crafted over the past four years dissolved with no alternative in sight.
Looking back, I think my life plan fell apart for two reasons. First, it was not rooted in a firm sense of vocation. Second, and more importantly, it did not align with my own deeply-rooted values.
Discussions of vocation are crucial, especially for undergraduate students. Not only is college a time to learn a discipline and consider what jobs we might want, but it is also a prime opportunity to discover who we are. My plan had focused on what I thought I wanted to do in my future career, but not on the significant puzzle piece of who I wanted to be.
I rationalized my plan in terms of a broad sense of service to our country, but I followed the steps in reverse. I had not arrived at a sense of service as a calling and then chose to pursue my military aspirations. Rather, I chose my military aspirations and aligned my potential service with what I was “called” to do.
While we should develop a sense of calling before evaluating potential job or career choices, this is much easier said than done. A common perception of introducing the conversation of calling or vocation to my peers often revives the difficult and dreaded philosophical question: “What is my purpose in life?” This existential question—and its connection to discussions of calling—constitute a legitimate barrier to introducing students to the idea of vocation and to helping them explore and discern their callings. So, can we sidestep this question, at least at first, and still achieve the same goals? I think so, and it starts with identifying the deeply-rooted values that we hold.
Fortunately, students can be prompted to uncover these values by faculty members, advisors, and mentors as they guiding students through questions such as:
- Is having a work-life balance—where you can dedicate time to personal or family responsibilities without work interrupting them—important to you and what you desire for your life?
- When you serve others, does witnessing the impact on a personal level provide more satisfaction than simply knowing you served a community more broadly?
- Do you hope to travel in your future and explore the global impact of your service, or does it matter more to you to remain in your home or local communities as you dedicate your time and service to others?
While these are only a few of the potential questions that can guide students to begin considering their values, the answers to them can help them identify and pursue the opportunities best suited to them. These are vocational questions, but they don’t require us to use words like vocation and calling that may feel overwhelming. More importantly, this approach allows their sense of vocation to evolve or adapt to new life circumstances, as their values shift over time and different periods of life.
As I sat in my room at 4:00 a.m. halfway through Rook Week, I asked what “service to country” really meant to me. It was still important, but I realized that I found serving my local community more fulfilling, because I could better observe the tangible impacts my service had on others. I also desired to remain close to family and friends to maintain these strong relationships and my support networks, all of which led me to seek greater control over where I might work in the future.
Ultimately, I am confident that integrating this approach will make conversations about vocation more accessible to other students. And I encourage all of us to begin asking them these types of questions in their first semester or year of college, especially in classroom seminars and advising appointments. As they respond to them, students will begin to identify who they are and what values shape their decisions. It will help them determine which extracurricular activities or service projects they should pursue to help them develop a more defined sense of purpose and meaning. Clarifying what we value thus becomes the first step towards discovering what we are called to do. And students will continue to change majors or decide against certain career options, just as I did, and that is perfectly fine. Our purpose is to help all of them—those who are confident they are on the right path, as well as those who are less certain and choose to pivot—to navigate the options they face so that they align their emerging sense of purpose with their values.
Hector Aponte holds an undergraduate degree in political science from Norwich University, where he also served as a NetVUE ambassador during his junior and senior years. As an ambassador, he helped fellow students explore the idea of vocation by developing resources and planning events to share information and guidance on identifying their vocations. His academic interests include the intersection of politics, theology, society, and ethics, and he aims to help others strive to live their “good life.” In the fall, he will be attending Boston College’s Clough School of Theology and Ministry to complete a master’s degree in theological studies.