My Motivation, Essay Example

When I attended the University of Hawaii to pursue my undergraduate degree, I can vividly recall my last semester.  Many students have serious problems during their last semester because of what many individuals have affectionately called “senioritis.”  This problem essentially explains that seniors have very low motivation to attend classes and do the actual coursework because they are so close to the end of their education and receiving their diploma.  This happened to me and a classmate in our final biology course to satisfy our graduation requirements.  When it came time to study for our final exam, my friend and I spent the previous week talking about studying for the test but never actually doing any studying until the morning before our exam.  We had every intention to meet up several times during the week, but the problem was that we had very low motivation to do the work.

I believe that our motivation was low mainly because this was a course that was a distribution requirement and was not information that I thought was necessary for me to enter into my chosen career field.  My friend felt the same way as she was a political science major.  Therefore, we came up with every excuse possible to push the studying aside and we both ended up cramming a lot of work into the two hour block of time just before the exam.  We both understood that we needed to pass the class in order to graduate, but we had already earned the points we needed to on the papers and the midterm exam to satisfy passing the course.  The final exam was simply icing on the cake.  While I wanted to maintain a strong overall grade point average, I was less concerned about this because I was just ready for the class and my degree to be finished so that I could start looking for a job.  My friend and I both valued the course less than we valued our senior theses and looking for jobs for after graduation.  Of course the final senior parties were also a lot of fun as well.

My friend and I behaved as we did because we had very low motivation for this specific course and did not value it as much as we should have.  We both were looking past this specific biology course and put more effort into our senior projects and giving our presentations than anything else.  Whenever we had free time, we chose to spend it with friends or going out to the movies because we believed that we deserved a break away from school work for all the time and effort we had spent researching and working on our senior projects.  Biology was simply a distribution requirement and was only required for graduation as a technicality.  This was not a course that either of us had chosen to take willingly; it was simply a means to achieve the end of graduating and getting the diploma.

According to chapters five and six of the text, it is clear that the goal setting theory and McClelland’s Theory of Needs are two of the more important theoretical explanations for our motivation, or lack thereof.  For instance, the goal setting theory suggests that individuals will perform better when they have goals set that can be followed and achieved.  Our only true goal for the biology course was to earn a passing grade.  I suppose that I may have had another minute goal of earning an A in the course, although I did not put very much effort into achieving this goal.  This shows that my commitment was an influence on the goal-performance relationship.  While I had the goal of earning an A, I was not committed to it as much as my original goal of simply passing the course.  This explains part of my motivation, but I also had set much higher and more important goals for my senior thesis project.  Therefore, my goals were more difficult and had higher importance to me for the senior project, which is why my commitment towards achieving these goals and performing well was much higher.

McClelland’s Theory of Needs emphasizes on three important needs.  These needs are called the need for achievement, need for power and the need for affiliation.  Two of these needs were ultimately met by our actions in relationship to the biology course.  First of all, the need for power did not apply because neither of us was looking to make the other, or anyone else in the course for that matter, behave in a way that they would not normally.  Power had nothing to do with our motivation for not studying for the final exam and pushing it aside for more important activities and projects.  Instead, the need for achievement was much more of a factor in this scenario.  Our drive to excel was only seen in the senior thesis projects and the courses within our specific majors.  Therefore, our need for achievement was almost fully satisfied by the time we entered the biology course.  The biology class instilled very little need for achievement or any drive to excel because we did not place a high value on the information in the course or the work.  Our drive to excel was only to perform well enough to earn a passing grade to graduate with our diplomas.  Finally, the need for affiliation was met because my friend and I both made conscious choices to work together and in our interpersonal relationship to undertake similar academic actions in the course.  If we did not take the course together, this need would not have been satisfied and it is unclear whether either of us would have been more motivated than we originally were.

There is much to learn about myself and the motivating factors that play a role in determining my overall production and achievement levels within an organization.  I learned mainly that the goals I set for myself must be goals that I truly have high value for and will aspire to achieve.  Unfortunately, the biology course provided me with an opportunity to set goals for myself that only saw me going through the motions instead of pushing myself to excel in the course.  In the future, I must create organizational and personal goals that have meaning in order to provide me with the motivation that is necessary to be successful.  I enjoy my work very much, so I want to maintain a high level of production and achievement in order to keep my job.  This intrinsic valuation of the work automatically provides motivation for me to perform well, but I must also set goals that will keep me focused whenever I feel like going through the motions again in an organizational setting.