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No, I disagree, respectfully (with the hope of avoiding a generation flame war).
As a millennial, I would not call the message we got "entitlement." That term implies we felt were inherently owed something. I never felt that. We were told we had to work hard. We were the generation that overloaded on extracurriculars and obsessed about our gpa in order to get into the best college possible because that was everything. We studied like fiends because we were told that hard work paid off.
We were taught that we would get rewards commensurate to our effort expended. We were told by every authority figure that "staying in school" mattered. Even more so, doing well in school would result in a middle class lifestyle at least as good as our parents and probably better.
I was told this by every authority figure I can remember. Also it was a powerful theme in the media of the 1990s.
It's not an underlying issue, it's a primary issue. We were told academics were everything. The reality that they're not was a bitter pill.
That all sounds like excuses. You make yourself sound like naïve. It has never been the case that's educational degrees somehow equates career success and financial prosperity. It has never worked that way anywhere any time in history. That said, academics is important but it isnt everything. Your success depends on your intelligence, your academic success, your background, and perhaps most importantly your emotional intelligence and your personality. Whether you have a degree from Harvard when you dropped out of college, that doesn't matter. The society is open. It's a matter of what you do and what you make of it. Do you have analytical thinking skills? Do you communicate well? Can you solve problems and complex situations? Do you work with other people different kinds of people different personalities, not just those that are educated and warm and fuzzy? How's your public speaking skills. Do you panic when facing problems. How do you organize yourself your life and your time. Are you a good salesman. Have you mastered the art of persuasion. See, most of these are beyond what you learned in school. Education doesn't even teach you some of these things, unless you're actively seek out and grasp these things on your own.
What you have been taught is basically thinking of education and degrees as a sort of absolute protection. But there really isn't absolute protection in life. It do you have to charge your own waters. Nobody has that magic to give you a guaranteed middle-class life. There is no magic. It wouldn't be nice if there is this one thing that you have to do and as long as you do it, it'll work. But that sounds like oversimplified advertisement.
That all sounds like excuses. You make yourself sound like naïve. It has never been the case that's educational degrees somehow equates career success and financial prosperity. It has never worked that way anywhere any time in history. That said, academics is important but it isnt everything. Your success depends on your intelligence, your academic success, your background, and perhaps most importantly your emotional intelligence and your personality. Whether you have a degree from Harvard when you dropped out of college, that doesn't matter. The society is open. It's a matter of what you do and what you make of it. Do you have analytical thinking skills? Do you communicate well? Can you solve problems and complex situations? Do you work with other people different kinds of people different personalities, not just those that are educated and warm and fuzzy? How's your public speaking skills. Do you panic when facing problems. How do you organize yourself your life and your time. Are you a good salesman. Have you mastered the art of persuasion. See, most of these are beyond what you learned in school. Education doesn't even teach you some of these things, unless you're actively seek out and grasp these things on your own.
What you have been taught is basically thinking of education and degrees as a sort of absolute protection. But there really isn't absolute protection in life. It do you have to charge your own waters. Nobody has that magic to give you a guaranteed middle-class life. There is no magic. It wouldn't be nice if there is this one thing that you have to do and as long as you do it, it'll work. But that sounds like oversimplified advertisement.
Well, as kids in the 1990s and college students in the 2000s we didn't just invent those ideas out of thin air. Adults told us. Pastors, teachers, counselors, parents, grandparents, mayors, presidents, Will Smith, the Power Rangers, they all told us "stay in school." You can find the old "more you know" PSAs on youtube. When you get that pounded into your head for 20 years, you believe it.
Sorry I didn't hear very often that I needed to be a b.s. artist to succeed. We were told work hard and study hard, "just say no" to drugs, etc..
Well, as kids in the 1990s and college students in the 2000s we didn't just invent those ideas out of thin air. Adults told us. Pastors, teachers, counselors, parents, grandparents, mayors, presidents, Will Smith, the Power Rangers, they all told us "stay in school." You can find the old "more you know" PSAs on youtube. When you get that pounded into your head for 20 years, you believe it.
Sorry I didn't hear very often that I needed to be a b.s. artist to succeed. We were told work hard and study hard, "just say no" to drugs, etc..
and so what? It isn't like it isn't true...
the more you know, the more options you have... OPTIONS, not things handed to you, you still have to go out there and make due with what you have, and as you do it, you get more options because you get more skills over time
IE, find you have an english degree, go into marketing, teaching, even oversea teaching, or research, writing a book, etc... sure those things you can do without a degree, but having one and the process of getting it gets you exposed to more than if you sat at home so you have a higher chance of finding what you want to do then having the resources to do it. Everyone that gripes about it didn't exercise their options and instead just wanted to get a high paying job... who cares, you can make money doing literally anything in the world so why would you go to school? You go to expose yourself to different things without having to travel the world for the same exposure. After that, it's up to you to decide what to do with yours life. Why expect someone else to do it for you?
the entire student loans thing is exaggerated too, there are options without taking out as much/any loans and yet people decided to go the easy route instead of putting in the time/effort/research to do otherwise. And many people do and have no debt coming out of school. Maybe they can take that as a lesson, don't take the easy way out unless you are willing to hand over money for it...
No, I disagree, respectfully (with the hope of avoiding a generation flame war).
As a millennial, I would not call the message we got "entitlement." That term implies we felt were inherently owed something. I never felt that. We were told we had to work hard. We were the generation that overloaded on extracurriculars and obsessed about our gpa in order to get into the best college possible because that was everything. We studied like fiends because we were told that hard work paid off.
We were taught that we would get rewards commensurate to our effort expended. We were told by every authority figure that "staying in school" mattered. Even more so, doing well in school would result in a middle class lifestyle at least as good as our parents and probably better.
I was told this by every authority figure I can remember. Also it was a powerful theme in the media of the 1990s.
It's not an underlying issue, it's a primary issue. We were told academics were everything. The reality that they're not was a bitter pill.
Not having a good education that would give one a directional heading with regard to employment is usually a thing associated with those in the lower classes and most middle class parents would be considered negligent if they were to allow such a situation to be visited upon their child.
Working hard in school and working hard in commerce aren't that different really, it's the fact that most schools were woefully inadequate in their efforts to draw that straight line between the two that has caused some to stall out when working in the commercial world. Most of your public education was supposed to be utilized as a primer for higher education, not for working. Effort rewarded for it's own sake wasn't helping things either.
The assumption that a college education today can be equated with a kind of financial success that rewards one with an over the top annual salary and a Lambo in the garage is just plain foolish and only fools have pursued their degree with that type of compensation in mind. I have memories of the days when young degreed employees were asking about the management "fast track", this was after their initial two or three months on the job. Many were demoralized at finding out the truth of things, angry and disappointed to learn that it would take years of hard work and demonstrated ability to get ahead.
They learned that life had a "natural" aspect of an ever increasing expectation of reward, what they didn't learn was the fact that work had much more complexity to it than studying the answers of a test and then "acing" said test as a demonstration of ability. They also were raised in the era of teamwork being a solution to the brutal realities of inequity in individual ability. Not an altogether positive scenario for asserting oneself.
Additionally, no one explained to them that a huge chunk of America's salary floor had fallen to all time lows and that they were not immune from these reversals of fortune, no one explained to them that a rising economy can only rise so far and fast before the contraction begins. They grew up in a rising economy and had no reason to believe that it had no end to it. Given today's business realities I'd have to say that youth were led on a tad bit more than some would like to believe.
I don't speak for all millennials, but it's not even the job. I have a decent job which my college degrees are partly responsible for. So at least on that front, the promises were kept. Student loans were annoying, but 30K debt wasn't that hard to handle. I paid it off in 5 years.
It's how obscenely expensive cost of living is which is most frustrating. I never thought that having a full time career-type job with benefits would be worth so little in the scheme of things, particularly when it comes to buying a house. I never thought I'd need a roommate over age 30. $400K for even a starter house IS hard to handle.
Maybe the underlying issue is that it's harder for millennials because they grew up with a sense of entitlement, taught in schools where things were made to be fun so they weren't prepared for boring work, and cocooned by positive thinking and praise so that they expected everything would be easy.
I happen to disagree with your distilling the positive re-inforcement of young people as a negative. It so happens that millennial can and do get positive praise and re-inforcement when doing something positive..succeed at some goal..but on the other hand..I'm sure most also point out the negative..and try to intervene and support their child to do BETTER..learn etc..So it's not a comprehensive attitude like some wish to portray....
Sure some parents enable negative behaviours by NOT addressing it and actually defend negative behaviours and blame to messenger mind set. Which for some falls under the 'dude of "NO BODY will tell me how to raise my child ..which ends up in what you describe..and more often than not..those entitled kids can end up behaving badly and expect to be BAILED OUT!!! Then whine and cray the blues..they are bing targeted...
Having said all that tho..It's the upper class..that parental influence did NOT hold their kids accountable..and goes on to depending on their parents "INFLUENCE" to get them out of trouble..Noteable murder case where some young man got off killing numerous others with what ended up being termed/coined "AFFLUENZA DEFENCE"!!
A Texas teenager who avoided prison after a psychologist described him as suffering from "affluenza" has been ordered by a judge to attend an undisclosed rehabilitation facility.
Ethan Couch was given ten years' probation last December for killing four people and seriously injuring two while driving drunk. On Wednesday, district judge Jean Boyd again did not issue any jail time and assigned him to the centre in a court hearing that was closed to the media.
The sentence handed out by Boyd last year outraged the victims' families and the case attracted national attention after a psychologist called by the defence testified that the teenager had "affluenza", indicating that his behavioural problems were influenced by a troubled upbringing in a wealthy family where privilege prevented him from grasping the consequences of his actions.
Critics said the outcome was an egregious example of a justice system that treats the rich and the poor differently.
Quote:
Originally Posted by redguard57
I don't speak for all millennials, but it's not even the job. I have a decent job which my college degrees are partly responsible for. So at least on that front, the promises were kept. Student loans were annoying, but 30K debt wasn't that hard to handle. I paid it off in 5 years.
It's how obscenely expensive cost of living is which is most frustrating. I never thought that having a full time career-type job with benefits would be worth so little in the scheme of things, particularly when it comes to buying a house. I never thought I'd need a roommate over age 30. $400K for even a starter house IS hard to handle.
Yikes I recall looking for a house over 30 years ago..and looking at homes in the range of $120,000.00 that NOW cost over 1.2 Million today..Geesh..never mind the cost of ALL other services and food!!!! Yet actually ability to earn wages have not kept pace..
LOL..Back when I first started working as a RN in hospital...I earned about $1.20/Hr..Guess, I didn't go into that career looking to get rich, eh? Oh yeah..Back in 1970..New car cost 1,500.00 Gas cost 19 cents a gallon and rent was $100.00 a month... SMH!!
No, I disagree, respectfully (with the hope of avoiding a generation flame war).
As a millennial, I would not call the message we got "entitlement." That term implies we felt were inherently owed something. I never felt that. We were told we had to work hard. We were the generation that overloaded on extracurriculars and obsessed about our gpa in order to get into the best college possible because that was everything. We studied like fiends because we were told that hard work paid off.
We were taught that we would get rewards commensurate to our effort expended. We were told by every authority figure that "staying in school" mattered. Even more so, doing well in school would result in a middle class lifestyle at least as good as our parents and probably better. I was told this by every authority figure I can remember. Also it was a powerful theme in the media of the 1990s.
Trying to be reciprocally courteous, I have to say that your view does not coincide with everything I've read. Almost all the articles I read say that millennial don't want to do anything that's hard work and don't really know how to deal with problems. You may have escaped that, but I think you may not be the norm.
Trying to be reciprocally courteous, I have to say that your view does not coincide with everything I've read. Almost all the articles I read say that millennial don't want to do anything that's hard work and don't really know how to deal with problems. You may have escaped that, but I think you may not be the norm.
You know, sometimes I also think that about the younger people coming up, the Z's or whatever we're going to call them.
Were there not boomers, Xers, Greatests, etc... who were lazy? Every generation is going to have people allergic to work. It's not my experience that millennials are any better or worse on that.
I don't think we should generalize any group too much. It's fine to point out trends and shared experiences, but the cottage industry of defining generations sometimes gets into over-generalization.
I read a fascinating book a few years ago that discussed how the organizational structure of wars matched the economic structure of the time period. In ancient times, when economies were agrarian, wars were essentially won through the generation of surplus human and animal labor. In the industrial age, wars were won through manufacturing and the ability to churn out weapons and ships and eventually airplanes and missiles. Now that we are in the information age, the author argued that superpower status, from a military perspective, could only come from information/technology superiority.
With that analogy in mind, I am starting to think that the generational "judging" that is going on in this thread is based on a similar pattern. If you ask a 19th century farmer what constitutes a full day of work, you will get a very different answer than if you asked a 1960's factory worker, and an even more different answer from a millennial software developer. As our economy has changed, the value of different skills and tasks has changed dramatically. In my own profession, the change has been dramatic. My retiring colleagues talk about the days when they would spend 12 hours a day in the lab waiting for reactions to complete and instruments to scan. I can write a program in Labview that automates the processes so they happen while I am at home, and in some cases simulate them nearly instantaneously. On one hand you could say that my job is a lot easier than theirs because I never spend the night in my lab and I rarely even stay late in the evening, but on the other hand, I had to learn how to program and to build my own instruments to some extent, and to stay competitive in my field I have to publish at about 4x the rate that they did. That is why I can take the time to go get some coffee and post on C-D; I am not being lazy I am relaxing my brain before working very hard on something that would have taken weeks or months to do decades ago. I am 36, by the way, so I am not a millenial, but I am close.
I read a fascinating book a few years ago that discussed how the organizational structure of wars matched the economic structure of the time period. In ancient times, when economies were agrarian, wars were essentially won through the generation of surplus human and animal labor. In the industrial age, wars were won through manufacturing and the ability to churn out weapons and ships and eventually airplanes and missiles. Now that we are in the information age, the author argued that superpower status, from a military perspective, could only come from information/technology superiority.
With that analogy in mind, I am starting to think that the generational "judging" that is going on in this thread is based on a similar pattern. If you ask a 19th century farmer what constitutes a full day of work, you will get a very different answer than if you asked a 1960's factory worker, and an even more different answer from a millennial software developer. As our economy has changed, the value of different skills and tasks has changed dramatically. In my own profession, the change has been dramatic. My retiring colleagues talk about the days when they would spend 12 hours a day in the lab waiting for reactions to complete and instruments to scan. I can write a program in Labview that automates the processes so they happen while I am at home, and in some cases simulate them nearly instantaneously. On one hand you could say that my job is a lot easier than theirs because I never spend the night in my lab and I rarely even stay late in the evening, but on the other hand, I had to learn how to program and to build my own instruments to some extent, and to stay competitive in my field I have to publish at about 4x the rate that they did. That is why I can take the time to go get some coffee and post on C-D; I am not being lazy I am relaxing my brain before working very hard on something that would have taken weeks or months to do decades ago. I am 36, by the way, so I am not a millenial, but I am close.
Good point. It's the same in my field. When I look at the scholarship produced in the 1940s and 50s, they simply did not have the technology to enable them to do what we do now. The stars were still stars, but the "very good" people would have barely passed today. The actual process of their work was harder, but in terms of expectations by 2015 standards today they would not pass muster... We're talking people who were well respected in the field in those days that would barely make it through grad school in 2015.
I see this kind of expectations inflation on the hiring side. I've seen people at higher levels than me lament the "poor quality" of applicants - when they themselves would not have met those expectations when they were 24 in 1990.
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