Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Their inner feelings of inferiority and their belief they won't live up to our goals or accomplishments?
-Dr Gordon PhD Clinical Psychology Class of 1963.
They're just scared, much as I was in 1981 when I was dumped out on my own in the face of a bad economy, and laid off from two jobs before I'd been out of college for two years as companies shed personnel to save money.
Or much as I am now, being 55 and unemployed. Too young (and too broke) to retire.
Tough times are not over, no matter what unemployment figures say.
Why do you feel the need to remind everybody you have a phd.
So he can establish a sense of authority. He's so old fashioned that he still believes that having a PhD is akin to having a nobility title.
My gramps did that... he had a PhD in Chemistry, worked at a small branch of a state university and was of the same generation. He let EVERYONE know he had earned a PhD. As a child my mother gave me strict instructions to address the envelope to "Dr. and Mrs. so-and-so". I can't say I was all that fond of him. He was just as condescending and patronizing as the OP,
My husband is a Gen Xer with a doctorate -and a far more accomplished academic than my gramps- he doesn't ever mention the PhD unless the context of a conversation necessitates the mentioning of it, which isn't very often outside of work.
And thank goodness!
Really, if he OP could get over themselves and practice a little humility then maybe we all could benefit from what wise advice I'm sure he has.
I am a mid-boomer who has worked with young people for thirty years now. I do agree that this current crop seems intellectually passive, a trait I attribute to several recent cultural developments:
1) many Americans' sense that children must be directly supervised at all times (some of my students have never wandered the woods or even parks by themselves);
2) the increase in high-stakes standardized testing, which has led to school curricula being highly scripted, with little to no room for individual initiative on the part of teacher or student;
3) the increase in media consumption (television, internet, video games) as opposed to actual social interaction (probably related to #1, as kids in the house with electronic devices are perceived as protected from the dangerous outer world).
All that said, these young people are emerging into a less-friendly economy and society. Thirty years ago, I was hired at my community college with a master's degree and one year of high school teaching experience. Such a resume would not make it through the initial screening process today because of the number of highly qualified applicants we receive for every opening. At the time I was hired, the state provided tuition waivers (and university departments saw part of their public function as the training of teachers for smaller schools), so I drove 100 miles each way to our flagship university every week until I earned a doctorate in my teaching field. That program no longer exists.
IMO you hit the nail on the head. And it's a pretty sad picture.
20 year-old Millennial in college here to weigh-in... Raised by helicopter Baby Boomer parents...
I have no feelings of inferiority, jealousy, or doom. Because I'm well aware that you guys screwed up the economy (and several generations of kids), I knew that I couldn't pursue the career I really wanted (education). Sure there are jobs for teachers out there, but the salary is very low (with little room for growth) and not many jobs are available. So, I chose another career path, speech-langauge pathology, where I can find a job anywhere in the world.
My parents told me I could be anything I wanted, but changed their minds once I started high school (2008) because of the economic downturn.
We don't give up easily. At least my classmates don't. I believe that the folks who can't find a job (which I find odd because many of them have the things I don't have (a) extensive work experience (b) a degree) are a bunch of copouts. They probably have poor interview skills and a crappy resume.
I still aspire to be the President and by the time I'm of age to do so, all you Baby Boomers will be dead or senile (THANK GOD!).
So is that your Boomer parents who paid for your expensive education in speech-pathology, who sacrificed their own wants and needs to make sure you never lacked for anything as a child, had every opportunity your pwreshus little heart desired when you were growing up, and who to this day still continue to support you chances are financially, mentally, emotionally, as you contemplate finding the "ideal" job suited to your education and sense of entitlement? Yeah, those folks and their peers, they're the ones you're aiming your expressions of celebration at their deaths and misfortunes. Did I mention that the sense of entitlement is second only to the lack of gratitude you and your ilk demonstrate?
Maybe you'd have done better had they neglected you and let you sink or swim....
Fact: They didn't except in rare cases, any more than they do now. And back in what you think of as the dark ages, it took just as much time and trouble for younger people to work up in their jobs into management than it does today.
Over the last 60 years I have watched the job market, there have been numerous times that the economy tanked, and there was high unemployment, etc. When I was a child, I lived through the Great Depression, which makes today seem like a huge booming economy. You have no idea of what rough times are.
They took degrees that has no demand for them. They took degrees that only pay about $30,000 or just a little more if they can even find a job in their field. Lets look at what degrees pay top wages and those that are almost useless.
Petroleum engineers can pick and choose who to work for, and start at about $100,000 per year. On the other hand, look at how many pay very low wages and benefits. Biggest reason for the differences: Low pay degrees have a huge surplus of millennials that took the easy courses, not willing to put forth the effort to get a degree that really pays off.
They did not go to college to get a degree that would give top incomes and chances for promotion, but took the easy way and took courses that lead to nearly worthless degrees, that pay less than many of the kids that they went to high school with, earn without college and the college debt.
Lets look at what has happened from 1951 to 2113 (last whole year for figures) in the way median income went up to what it is today.
Remember those old people you complain about not getting out of your way, were not making today's type wages so could not save money to live under today's economy. I am fortunate, as we own a very large custom home, 3 cars, and absolutely no debt. In fact we have not had any personal debt since the 1980s. I could write a check for $250,000 if I wanted to and it would clear, but not everyone is that fortunate. I was earning over $125,000 in today's dollars in 1957 only 3 years out of the navy, but not everyone was doing so. I had to fight tooth and nail from the day I got out of t he Navy in 1954, with a wife and 2 small children and no money saved up. I moved into the corporate world, and worked up to Division Sales Manager for a major old company, for west of the Mississippi river by the 1960s. I left corporate world to go into Commercial/Investment real estate brokerage where I remained till I finally retired so I could make real money.
I am telling you how we did, not to brag but to show it can be done, and it was even harder to make things like that happen back then, than it is today. There are so many opportunities all around us today, and one only has to look around to spot them. Most of the young today will not be highly successful, as they don't have the same drive I had back when I started. But I was unusual in the fact, that I fought hard as I did t o succeed. Most did not, and were willing to sit back and just do the job they had, without the drive to succeed.
I look around at the young people today, as I have done for the past 60 years, and see nothing has changed, except the young today expect things to be handed to them, and are not willing to get in there and fight to get what t hey want to get. They want the older generations to just quit, and let them have the positions the older generations worked all their life to achieve.
Engineering and STEM in general are definitely good investments. Problem is, you have to be extremely intelligent (probably IQ over 140) to be able to do it. The average IQ is 100.
I am a Gen Xer but I don't believe you can ignore the economy, the mismatch of available jobs to skills, and the increase in prices for homeownership, rent, and an education that far outpaced inflation and incomes in this discussion. This is particularly true in metro areas where many jobs are located. It is no different than the increases in healthcare that older generations have to contend with. Also, I don't know alot of people in my generation that expect to receive social security, so we are saving as much towards retirement as possible while battling ever increasing prices with stagnant incomes, in addition many of us are taking care of parents who lost jobs or made poor decisions in their own lives and require assistance, that is on top of the infants and toddlers that we have to send to childcare (I just read an article calling it the sandwich generation). With the exception of a select few, quality of life IMO continues to be on a downward trend for ALL not just one generation or another.
Many millennials complain about not having a job and yet they don't do anything about it. Ask them yourself you'll notice why I came to that conclusion.
I didn't see on your resume where you created any jobs. It seemed like you simply took a job that someone else created.
Engineering and STEM in general are definitely good investments. Problem is, you have to be extremely intelligent (probably IQ over 140) to be able to do it. The average IQ is 100.
I'm a year or two from getting a Physics Ph.D.
I'll find out and report back.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
