Having a purpose —the best map: an ICS research explains how it can impact and improve the lives of college students

Why is it important for young people to identify their life purpose ? Can a guide be designed to help them in this process? These are some of the questions addressed by Rodrigo Banda in his doctoral thesis , titled “Understanding and Enhancing Purpose in Emerging Adulthood,” which he completed as a researcher at the Center for Civic Humanism at the Institute for Culture and Society group (ICS) at the University of Navarra. The work was supervised by Álvaro Lleó, a professor in the School of Economics, and Javier García Manglano, the principal researcher of the ICS’s “Youth in transition” research project.

" research " not only offers a rigorous analysis of the benefits of identifying and fostering " purpose " (life purpose) starting in college— a time when people ask themselves essential questions about their identity and their professional and staff future—but also provides practical tools for undertaking this task. “ purpose (Life Purpose) offers guidance that helps people develop a goal(life purpose), an intention that makes it easier to organize resources and plan the goals each person sets for their life because they know where they want to go,” explains researcher.

Banda explains that, unlike decades ago, times and expectations have changed: “In modern societies like ours, processes take longer. Young people spend much more time deciding what they want to do with their lives and try out many different paths because there are more options to choose from. That’s not a bad thing, but it can hold some of them back.”

Thus, after reviewing the academic literature on “ purpose,” the “ researcher ” identified “the need to design interventions that could be implemented in Spanish-speaking universities—a methodology that allows students to explore the search for their ‘ purpose ’ and arrive at a statement of it.” In this regard, it emphasizes that “the ‘ goal ’ is to offer them a useful ‘tool ’ to guide them through this process, through a theoretical ‘ framework ’ and a series of practical steps.” Specifically, her proposal focuses on the Spanish-speaking world. “Upon reviewing the research that had been conducted on purpose, there are few academically focused analyses, and those that exist have been conducted primarily in the English-speaking world. That is why it was important to work in this field,” she notes.

"SPARK" Program

To achieve this, Banda has promoted and evaluated the SPARK program, designed to help college students discover and define their “ purpose.” It is an immersive experience in the form of a group workshop, in which more than 300 young people, aged 21, have already participated average. Throughout the sessions, they reflected on the need for and value of defining a life “ purpose ” and carried out various practical activities to achieve this. These included an exercise in visualizing the best version of oneself in the future, activities to identify personal values, and writing a letter to one’s future self.

The study gathered data on the experiences of 172 college students, some of whom participated in the program and others who had not, which made it possible to draw a comparison. In addition, a methodology was established to assess the impact of the workshop immediately after it was held and six weeks later. 

The results were very positive. “Program participants improved their overall levels of ‘flourishing’ in areas such as happiness and life satisfaction, as well as character and virtue,” he explains. Furthermore, the program helps improve “dispositional hope—that is, a person’s belief that they will achieve what they set out to do with their life”—and “financial aid s people to set clear goals to manage their life objectives.” Following her dissertation defense, Banda is now continuing her degree program at the University of Navarra’s Mentoring Unit as a project manager.