Chickering's Vectors and My College Experience

In July of 2003 I was dropped off at my new apartment in Long Beach, California. I did not know anyone in the city much less the university and apartment complex. School was not to begin for another month. My parents thought the best way for me to be adjusted was to simply live by myself and take care of bills and survival. I thought that I was ready for the challenge, but it was like…hard.
I did not adjust to this vector well, because although I may had been acting like an adult I never had to do adult things like pay bills or drive. The first of Chickering’s vectors that I encountered was Autonomy and Interdependence. I had difficulty managing a budget not because I didn’t have money but because paying bills and getting around were too difficult for a nineteen year old me to maneuver. I had always had the support of my parents or at least had a roof over my head, now it was my burden. However, I don’t know how I could have avoided this internal conflict. I had no idea how to be a self-sufficient human being. I actually still go through this conflict. I might be able to turn in assignments but sometimes I still have difficulty adjusting to real world expectations of a twenty five year old educated woman. I am autonomous now but being part of a relationship I have noticed that I have deferred many of my interdependent responsibilities onto her. In many ways I hope we work because I would not know how to function without her. Tara, my partner, and I both working on our interdependence. We both left our families and although I never had a close relationship with my family, I am beginning to realize that sometimes I just need my Daddy. I need to call him more now that I live across the country than when I lived a couple of hours away. I am constantly working through this vector. I don't think it is exclusive to the student condition.

The second of Chickering’s vectors that I encountered in college was the establishment of identity. I had to deal with multiple definitions of identity. When I was in high school I was not mature enough to handle my lesbian identity. It was a secret. I also did not know how to reconcile or create that identity. By the time I was in college I became familiar with the words and look of lesbianism. I was able to change myself. I cut off my long blonde hair and started wearing masculine clothes to mark my lesbianism. I realized that gender was a performance choice and not decided at birth. In many ways it was liberating. Part of the establishment of identity is understanding how one’s new identity is aligned or dis-aligned with their family structure, which would lead me to argue that anyone that goes through the coming out process is going through this vector. That phase in a queer person’s identity construction builds not only their family identity and their social identity. Every gay person can relate to coming out or feeling threatened to come out. I still struggle with this vector because I constantly have to maneuver places I can describe my identity. Coming out is never an event it is many events. I struggle with whether or not to talk openly about my experiences in class, whether I am taking them or teaching them. I feel that many intuitively know my sexuality but I also know that other people can choose to ignore certain aspects of me in order for them not to deal with their own internalized homophobia. Minnesota nice has played an interesting cultural game with me. I do not necessarily know what is appropriate. In California those lines culture lines are very marked and easy to cross or to steer clear from. Minnesota is a very different place. I do not know what is acceptable or when it is acceptable to be gay here. My established identity in many ways is challenged on a daily basis.

The final vector that I will focus on is integrity. Chickering used the phrase, “humanizing,” to describe how humans begin to understand the plight that other people go through after living their own experience. I know that I had my own normative moralistic view of right and wrong. However, after I began college that view was altered. I used to think that it was wrong to do certain things and when I began to see how other people lived and experience the world I was able to think about those things in a different way. I did not know other gay people before I went to college but when I actually met adult gay people I realized it was not a lifestyle but who people were and are. I met people that did drugs but were not lowlifes or selling their souls. I met people that drank alcohol on a daily basis but didn’t seem to have a problem. Simply being around different people can be an eye opening experience. I know it was for me and now I view the world in a different perspective. I now always attempt to “walk a mile in another person’s shoes,” as the expression goes. Understanding the vectors allows someone to better evaluate not only other’s experiences but allows ourselves to frame perspective in a more inclusive way.