What are Smart Goals For College Students?

Stepping into college means expanding your horizons. Colleges and universities encourage each and every student to be passionate about their future. To succeed in this new milestone, you should set goals for yourself. These goals can range in scope and size. Lining these goals out is like drawing a map for your future, one you can navigate from year to year. A popular acronym for goals is called SMART. We at NSHSS wanted to lay out what exactly this acronym stands for and how it can improve your overall college experience. We believe that each student can and will accomplish whatever they want, and we want to help you get there. But every new journey starts with the first step. So let’s look at what it means to be SMART.

A quick note before we unpack this fun guide: the idea of a goal will differ for everyone. A goal for somebody in a trade school will differ greatly from a music conservatory's. A nursing student will aim to achieve something different than a drama student. Therefore, when evaluating your goal(s), do not be discouraged if it appears differently from others around you. As long as you are excited and encouraged by it, just be sure to give it all. 

Now let’s dive into acronyms!

Specific 

As you can imagine, you can’t have a too vague or overarching goal. To truly accomplish what you set your mind to, you first must know the ins and outs of that goal. In other words, the more specific, the better. When planning for your future, whether over the coming year, or something you wish to achieve by the end of your Senior year, try unpack the incremental aspects of your goal. The more specific you can be, the better chance you have at finding ways to achieve that goal. 

Measurable 

A goal worth achieving is never easy, and it helps to know how much your goal will mean to you. Goals cannot stand on their own without something to be measured against. Even if you outline a specific goal, you still need to know what it will cost you regarding time, money, effort, and emotion. So try to view your goal in terms of cost vs. reward. If a goal will take too much time and might detract from your other school work or social life, maybe reevaluate its usefulness. The same goes for the amount of money it will cost you, and the effort you might be asked to put into it. Do not focus on a goal that will make you feel burnt out before it’s even accomplished. And again, this barometer will be different for every student. So don’t be afraid to be honest with yourself, it will pay off big time in the long-run. 

Attainable 

Goals are not meant to be too broad or too overarching, but they are meant to be achieved. If you are a biology student in your Sophomore year, your goal should not be to try and swim the English Channel in three months. While this might seem silly, it’s a good way to view how you approach laying out your goal. As mentioned above, colleges and universities want you to be passionate about your future, but they also want you to be realistic. Do not set yourself an impossible or unrealistic goal for your future career. Just be rational when thinking through what road maps you wish to follow. And again, being specific will help you zero in on those more attainable goals. 

Relevant 

In keeping with this idea of specificity and attainability, your goal should be relevant to your future career aspirations. There is nothing wrong with pushing yourself to a goal that seems pretty difficult, as long as it encompasses a good deal of what sort of degree you’re pursuing. If you’re having trouble coming up with a ‘relevant’ goal, seek out your guidance counselor and/or college advisor to get more perspective on what you might expect to find as you move through the different stages of your preferred degree year-by-year. 

Time-based 

And finally, every goal truly comes down to timing. As we mentioned above, you need to measure your goal against outside forces such as money, effort, and time. College can feel like a lifetime but can move by quicker than you imagine. So when laying out your goal’s road map, think through how much of your time you’re willing to invest in this goal. Some goals may not be accomplished by the time you walk across the podium, other goals might take you less time to achieve than you originally planned for at the outset. Do not be worried if you do not truly run into these time-based issues until you have begun work on your goal; that is okay. Just be sure to base your goal partly on the time it takes you. This last step will not only keep your goal measured and attainable, but it will also teach you the value of time management for years to come. 

There is an old saying: ‘The future is what you make of it.’ For the most part, that is true. Your actions can and often do determine what happens next in your life. That is why it is important to be SMART. But, as you have hopefully seen, being SMART also means being realistic and having patience. While we can determine a good deal of our future, we certainly cannot plan for every little thing. Money, time, effort, and other outside forces will change and shape your goals as you move through college. That is okay. In fact it might even be for the better. Because there is an unspoken element to this acronym, the silent G if you will. And that is grit. To truly accomplish a goal you must be resilient to the things in life that you cannot change. Only then will you truly see how you yourself measure up against the world.

Visit the NSHSS website for more information on future career paths and setting goals. And always remember, it’s our goal to see you succeed!