Interesting article I think is thought provoking

[momofthreeboys]

<p>An interesting (lengthy) article in the March Atlantic, this is just a small snippet and poignant during these couple months where teens and recent grads are looking for jobs (or not looking for jobs) and kids are realizing they can’t afford their dream schools after "all the hard work…</p>

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Many of today’s young adults seem temperamentally unprepared for the circumstances in which they now find themselves. Jean Twenge, an associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University, has carefully compared the attitudes of today’s young adults to those of previous generations when they were the same age. Using national survey data, she’s found that to an unprecedented degree, people who graduated from high school in the 2000s dislike the idea of work for work’s sake, and expect jobs and career to be tailored to their interests and lifestyle. Yet they also have much higher material expectations than previous generations, and believe financial success is extremely important. “There’s this idea that, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to work, but I’m still going to get all the stuff I want,’” Twenge told me. “It’s a generation in which every kid has been told, ‘You can be anything you want. You’re special.’”</p>

<p>In her 2006 book, Generation Me, Twenge notes that self-esteem in children began rising sharply around 1980, and hasn’t stopped since. By 1999, according to one survey, 91 percent of teens described themselves as responsible, 74 percent as physically attractive, and 79 percent as very intelligent. (More than 40 percent of teens also expected that they would be earning $75,000 a year or more by age 30; the median salary made by a 30-year-old was $27,000 that year.) Twenge attributes the shift to broad changes in parenting styles and teaching methods, in response to the growing belief that children should always feel good about themselves, no matter what. As the years have passed, efforts to boost self-esteem—and to decouple it from performance—have become widespread. </p>

<p>These efforts have succeeded in making today’s youth more confident and individualistic. But that may not benefit them in adulthood, particularly in this economic environment. Twenge writes that “self-esteem without basis encourages laziness rather than hard work,” and that “the ability to persevere and keep going” is “a much better predictor of life outcomes than self-esteem.” She worries that many young people might be inclined to simply give up in this job market. “You’d think if people are more individualistic, they’d be more independent,” she told me. “But it’s not really true. There’s an element of entitlement—they expect people to figure things out for them.”

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<p>

Ron Alsop, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal and the author of The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation Is Shaking Up the Workplace, says a combination of entitlement and highly structured childhood has resulted in a lack of independence and entrepreneurialism in many 20-somethings. They’re used to checklists, he says, and “don’t excel at leadership or independent problem solving.” Alsop interviewed dozens of employers for his book, and concluded that unlike previous generations, Millennials, as a group, “need almost constant direction” in the workplace. “Many flounder without precise guidelines but thrive in structured situations that provide clearly defined rules.”

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<p>Here’s the link…it’s a rather chilling article…</p>

<p>[How</a> a New Jobless Era Will Transform America - Magazine - The Atlantic](<a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/03/how-a-new-jobless-era-will-transform-america/7919]How”>How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America - The Atlantic)</p>

[toneranger]

<p>Wow, long, thoughtful and…depressing. </p>

<p>As someone who usually argues value over prestige, I was struck by one of the observations. Those Ivy kids appear to have a great head start…at least if they’re interested in Financial Services. </p>

<p>"The research of Till Von Wachter, the economist at Columbia University, suggests that not all people graduating into a recession see their life chances dimmed: those with degrees from elite universities catch up fairly quickly to where they otherwise would have been if they’d graduated in better times; it’s the masses beneath them that are left behind. Princeton’s 2009 graduating class found more jobs in financial services than in any other industry. According to Princeton’s career-services director, Beverly Hamilton-Chandler, campus visits and hiring by the big investment banks have been down, but that decline has been partly offset by an uptick in recruiting by hedge funds and boutique financial firms. "</p>

[momofthreeboys]

<p>^^Agree and I thought that the quote you pulled was one of the few anecdotal accounts totally supporting the Ivy + financial services connection.</p>

[Lergnom]

<p>I read the article. Thought it was crap. Generalizations guided by a point of view. This generation will do fine.</p>

[garland]

<p>

Generalizations guided by a point of view.

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<p>Very succinctly put, Lerg. It seems to be most pop journalism these days (and Atlantic’s definitely gone that way.)</p>

<p>Cherry pick some observations, tie’em up with the bow of your particular favorite thesis, (whether or not any serious study has gone into that correlation), and voila!–successful article.</p>

<p>Takes little work, garners big rewards–pot, kettle?</p>