Consider the tension created when MIT Mature, Boomer and Gen X faculty, who are living their passion, teach Millennials, who want to learn the material just well enough to get a good grade so they can move on to the other 17 activities they have to master that day.That's bullshit. At least, it didn't describe me or, as far as I could tell, most of my friends. (However, now I teach college and I feel it describes my students, so maybe Jones was just a few years too early?)
They do not need 30+ choices of living groups – they are busy…they just want a roomHaving a choice of where I was going to live -- and therefore being able to live around people that I was actually comfortable with -- really helped me feel like I had some sort of home in the first year of college. As a result I adjusted to college a lot more easily than I did the two times since then that I've moved long distances.
Generation Y, also known as iGenPlease tell me this is not true.
No, they got out of World War 2, used the GI Bill to go to college (no loans) and entered the job market where the rest of the world was pretty much destroyed and the US was booming.That doesn't describe any of my grandparents, fwiw. (And while two of then weren't typical Greatest Generation types, two of them were born in the US in 1921.) They didn't go to college. They had shitty, low-paying, non-union jobs that I wouldn't want to do. My grandfather had war-related PTSD, for which he never received any treatment or support. He died too young to ever collect social security.
Generation Y is also a particularly bad name because it screams "we couldn't even think of anything that distinguishes you, so... um... Y is the letter after X?"It gets worse than that. According to that same Wikipedia page, those born after Generation Y are Generation Z.
Well, see.. it's when you try to apply a broad sweep theory to the granular of the individual that it always breaks down, isn't it?Yeah, but it's not even that. It's that the discussions tend to universalize social factors that aren't universal. I've found that the How Millennials Are discussions are most likely to be true of middle to upper-middle-class kids from the suburbs and significantly less likely to be true of working-class kids from small towns or cities, for instance.
Another poll, of Americans ages 18 to 29, found that three-quarters of them expect to delay a major life change or purchase because of economic factors. The survey — released last week, just before the Standard & Poor's downgrade of U.S. debt — was by the nonprofit Generation Opportunity, headed by Paul Conway.Ha ha, jokes on all of you, this is part of
"There's a generation here being formed under the crucible of unemployment, debt and lack of economic chances," said Conway, who was chief of staff at the Labor Department during the George W. Bush administration.
During the fight in Congress this summer over the debt ceiling,There is no debt crisis, US Bonds are fucking cheap. There is a job crisis, an economic crisis, and a political crisis. Right-wing political agitprop... sacrifice, let Hank Paulson make some sacrifices first:frustrated college studentssome young Republicans banded together to form a coalition called Do We Have a Deal Yet? John Glass, 21, was one of more than 100 student body presidents who signed a public letter produced by the group.
"Our generation is going to take the brunt of the force of the debt crisis," said Glass, a government major at St. Lawrence University in New York. "It's going to mean fewer jobs, higher interest rates, more debt.
"Maybe I'm being naive, but I would like to see the fiscal deficit be the centerpiece of the campaign. Then whoever wins feels motivated to come in and solve these problems. But the electorate's gotta be educated. Because right now, you know what voters are telling Washington? "We want benefits that we don't want to pay for." And how selfish is that? Because all of you who are students here, your parents want what I want for my kids. I want them to have the same opportunity I had. And I've made great sacrifices for them to have that opportunity. But in our country, we have my generation being incredibly selfish, not willing to make a sacrifice -- and the people will pay for it is the next generation. But anyway, I think we need a mandate."posted by ennui.bz at 1:43 PM on August 14, 2011 [1 favorite]
" My wife is a teacher, and is endlessly frustrated by the fact that there's still tremendous pressure on her by parents and the administration to tell kids that a college degree is a necessity at whatever cost. She can't tell kids to become plumbers or electricians...."Crazy thing is, electricians and plumbers are in such short commodity right now that they're apparently being paid a HUGE ton of money.
The good news is the Millenials are a big cohort (bigger than the Boomers I think)That might be true in terms of sheer numbers, but it's not true in terms of sheer numbers per sheer numbers of other people alive at the same time. Per capita birth rates of Gen Y are less than 2/3rds what they were of Boomers.
Are you looking cross-country for jobs?Most recent grads aren't really in a position to do a cross-country job search. Unless you have very in-demand skills, no firm will either fly you out for an interview or hire you with just a phone interview. The cost of getting to interviews is prohibitive for all but the wealthiest recent grads. Most people focus on one area and attempt to find a job there.
Where competition is concerned, it's not particularly nice to think that me getting a job means someone else not getting it. But economics is not a zero-sum game: If I was the best person' for the job, then it can be hoped that I in that position will best contribute to the overall health of the economy, creating new job opportunities for others.That strikes me as ridiculous. There is a finite number of spots in medical schools. Every successful medical school applicant takes the spot of another qualified medical school applicant. The idea that a successful medical school applicant can create new spots in medical school by being a really good med student is silly.
I don't understand why you'd call the latest generation of teenagers a New Silent Generation.A couple things:
« Older In July 1969, just two days prior to the launch of... | Chinese-English Ambigrams [Pre... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by dunkadunc at 11:00 AM on August 14, 2011 [47 favorites]