Hmmm, I’m sensing a theme here, what with this coming on the heels of Keith’s mall post back in August …
So I’m wrangling a cohort of about 16 undergraduates who are doing internships during their final semester at UMD. Of the 16, 13 are going on to grad school. Of those, 3 are going on to pharmacy school. Most know they want career they want after their academic time is over.
I’m impressed with these kids, but sometimes my inner monologue wells up and says, “WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE? I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING AT YOUR AGE! WHAT THE HECK CHANGED IN THE LAST TEN YEARS TO MAKE KIDS THIS WAY?”
I admit that my group this semester may be an anomaly. But really, I had some basic assumptions about teenage and college years (times of aimless exploration!) that may need to be rewritten. Are these kids really any different from us? And if so, what forces were at work to make that happen?
Or maybe ... it's just me. *Sigh*
Kids These Days
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2 comments:
Unfortunately I don't have a long-winded answer for this. I think it's simply that you were not these kids. I definitely knew people even in high school who were very driven and motivated in one specific career path.
I think that there has been a general trend towards wanting children to become more focused earlier in their lives. Whether this is due to social or economic factors, there is almost an expectation now that everything that children do, whether it is in sports or in the classroom will somehow lead to the "next level" i.e. the more competitive baseball league, the specialized high school, or the specific college (and therefore the specific career that follows).
Although on the surface these people appear more focused, I think the reality is that they are just as undecided as we were in some respects, with the major difference being that they find themselves cocooned in a predefined career track. My fear is that many of these kids will find themselves questioning their choices later in life, at times where it will be more costly and inconvenient to make the change. It seems like everyone knows someone who got a specific kind of degree, only to turn around and choose one in another field...
Ultimately, I feel like these young adults are more similar to our parent's generation where there was still more of a feeling that you didn't question your career path (i.e. you did what your parents did for a living).
Obviously, this isn't the case for everyone and the miracle of the Internet has provided children with far more information to choose their careers and make informed choices earlier in their lives. However, this information doesn't mean that they are any more equipped physically or emotionally and if anything, there are more external pressures to get the college decision "right" thanks to our horrible economy and the crippling debt the average college student will accrue.
Anyway, that is my two cents. Long story short- the kids haven't changed, but the circumstances certainly have.
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