Young Adults in the Process of Academic Education and Shaping Their Life Project

Abstract

This study is an attempt to look at university education as an important developmental task and an element of young adults’ life project. Both the expert literature and the results of empirical research make it possible to treat higher education as an important element of entering adulthood and undertaking mature social and professional roles. Fulfilling those roles enables the young to collect life experience and to crystallize their mature life project. That project comprises many tasks the fulfilment of which allows young people to become adults and to build a mature identity. Becoming an adult occurs very individually, with the use of one’s own experience, resources, and competences. Therefore, the final developmental task can be viewed as the pursuit of adulthood and as undertaking mature obligations. In the case of young adults studying at university, that task involves the fulfilment of many social and (pro-)professional roles. Moreover, university students are provided with the possibility of verifying their current choices and investments in their own future before undertaking permanent obligations. In this context, it seems worth to raise questions of how students perceive this psychological period, how they find their place and what importance education has in their life project.