Generation Limbo

NYT piece today on recent Ivy League grads who are working menial jobs because they can't find work in their fields:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/fashion/recent-college-graduates-wait-for-their-real-careers-to-begin.html

 

Yes, if only they had plans for their education, none of this would have happened.

 

Fair enough. At one point, it refers to how their "well-mapped careers" have gone astray.

But I do think it's fair to point out that they - like, say, people going into newspaper sports journalism right now - didn't exactly consider the market before plunging headfirst into "doing what they love."

 

Fixed.

 

Why is that fair to point out? Based on the little snippets of information we're given about these people, you're able to make a snap judgment about what they were thinking when they decided on college? The market sucks for everyone. Usually kids who go to Harvard, Yale, etc. have their shit together. Not always, but usually. I really don't get how you read that article and took away that these people didn't have a good enough plan.

It seems like you either went into that article thinking "kids these days don't have a good enough plan!" or that's what you wanted to rail about here so you twisted it to that. I think there's a good discussion to be had based on this article, but it's not about a lack of planning.

 

I truly have an enormous amount of sympathy for these kids (no, I didn't attend an Ivy league school). It seems like no matter what you studied at school, no matter which school you attended, recent grads are relegated to grim, dead-end jobs....if they can find jobs at all.

When I was in grad school, people ahead of me in 2005-06 were able to find jobs with no problem in our chosen field. By the time I graduated, it was the worst economic climate since the great depression. I know the pain of having a graduate degree and being turned down for work unloading trucks at a toy store.

 

It's what we do here, dre: offer strong opinions based on insufficient or limited information.

 

I will read it again and see if I come out with a different impression, as others definitely have and that is a definite sign that perhaps I didn't come away from it with the right takeaway.

I felt like there was a certain amount of passivity at some points: "Ms. Kelly said her classmates seemed resigned to waiting for the economic tides to turn."

Although there is also this: "We did everything we were supposed to do."

So I will concede that my initial impression was probably somewhat off base. I suppose that, instead, these are probably people we can sympathize with considering what happened to a lot of us..

 

I don't think that my motives are really in play here, do you?

 

I was probably too harsh initially, but I do think that people need to be careful not to just "do what they love" without a backup plan. You shouldn't be leaving an Ivy League school without a good job.

 

1) "Ivy League Grads Working Menial Jobs" is much better than last year's trend story led by "Colgate Grad Who Turned Down A $40,000-A-Year Job So He Could Stay With Mom And Dad And Not Lower Himself." If the kids are smart and industrious -- which they seem to be, based on their education and their current willingness to work -- they'll be fine. I don't see what the problem is with someone who's 23 years old not doing exactly what they want RIGHT NOW.

2) This writer is looking for a narrative and is willing to fill us with all sorts of puffery to get it. She talks to the waitress who earns "$2.17 an hour plus tips" at the Chart House. Do you know what "plus tips" amounts to in that instance? Probably $50 to $75 an hour, that is a pretty high-end restaurant.

 

Variations of this article have already been posted on here about three dozen times. Not sure why you look with disdain on someone saying they did what they were supposed to do when what people have been supposed to do for the last 40 years or more is get good grades and go to college. But now it's suddenly their fault for pretty much doing what everyone else who's had a good old regular life has done. Get a better plan than everyone else ever!