Why are so many Millennials unhappy/dissatisfied with their personal lives? (girls, aunt)
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Well, if my life comprised only the years that millennials have been around, I'd be unhappy and depressed too. Think of all the nonsense that's bloomed in the past decades, including the ranting and foaming-at-the-mouth of politicians and growth of extremist media (so called "news"). We're surrounded by junk and reminders of junk everyday, wherever we go. People are also lost in electronics and technology, where before people would simply enjoy time with others. There's a huge disconnect between people these days.
I'm so thankful I've lived and seen happier, healthier, and more positive times in this country, such as the 60s and 70s. I don't know where I'd be without the positive anchor of those years, and that they occurred during my developing years as well.
It's really sad that culture and changes have handed these younger people such a worse-off and lower-par country. It's none of their faults, and they deserve so much better.
I have skipped through this thread and haven't watched the video, yet, but I am intrigued by this statement.
I was born in Jan 1982 so I'm not quite a Millenial and not quite Gen X, though I definitely identify with Gen X much more than Millenials.
You mentioned the 60s and 70s....what about Vietnam? Were those happy times? I can tell you as someone younger, I can't imagine things being THAT crazy. I'm currently watching the Ken Burns documentary on it (for the second time), and just by watching this, in my lifetime I haven't lived through anything that F'd up. (At least my perception) I always knew the basics of Vietnam but I didn't know it in detail. 9/11 and the Iraq war were serious, but I just can't picture living in a world and watching my friends get drafted to go die for a futile war.
I do lament how we are all glued to our devices, but I've sort of accepted it. There is no use pining for the old days cause it will never be that way again.
I am grateful that, being an 80s child, I do have a clear memory of the way the world was before computers/internet/cell phones/social media took over everything.
Perhaps millennial are more miserable because they are more educated and have more freedom than previous generations. Over the years I have come to realize that religion has caused lots of evil in the world, but it also gives people a sense of community and community is very important for social creatures. Millennials are very educated, and a lot of us become too informed to believe that there is some magical sky daddy governing the expanses of the universe, especially if we studied science and math in college. If I could believe in a religion, I would, but getting a degree in biology and evolution makes that impossible. There are too many things in the bible that make no sense to me now.
Also, the world that our parents promised us doesn't exist. It is extremely hard to get ahead now, its extremely hard to change things as wealth and power get consolidated at the top because of uncheck capitalism. A lot of us would like to have families, but since we stared later in life we dont have the time or savings, and having a child would put a lot of us in economic ruin. There is a petulant manchild voted in by boomers and xers that is dividing the country to the point where we hate each other more everyday. As a country we thought we had progressed to a certain level of cultural awareness and acceptance, but we are reminded daily there are many racist that remain in the dark ages. There is also a lot of other stuff like social media giving us unrealistic expectations for life, other stuff, yeah life is ****ed nowadays.
Congratulations on getting your career track set up! I just want to say that this idea that everyone should almost effortlessly graduate from college and segue into a career-related job is an ideal. A few students manage to pull it off, by working to get all their ducks in a row while they're in college (internships, etc.), and transitioning into a career-track job. A lot of students struggle, though. Every generation has gone through this struggle, because every generation was faced with a recession upon graduating, for at least part of their generation. And many graduates don't even try to get jobs related to their major; they take whatever they can get that a generic BA can land them.
The difference between "then" and now, is that the COL in many areas around the country has risen to the point that barely skating by on a barrister job, or a part-time waitressing job, or whatever, until the Big Break happens and graduates can get a "real" job, is no longer possible. There's a lot more pressure on grads than before, in some regions. So we shouldn't knock them, if they have to spend a few years job-searching from their parents' home.
One thing that I didn't understand at the time, and that I think colleges and universities do a very poor job of explaining, is how significant the local economy in the geographic area where you intend to work after graduation is.
I did an internship in my field. I had work experience, though it was basically retail, computer, and construction type work. I think I had about as decent of a background as you could get at the time, but I couldn't even land a bank teller's position after college. While I was under no delusion that my "regional state U" degree was going to land me an investment banking job in NYC, I figured local banking, corporate finance, etc., would be doable. I was completely wrong.
I took an IT call center job to pay the bills. I never got back into finance proper. I support financial software systems now, and the econ/finance background has been somewhat helpful - still, I'm in IT, and have been since 2010. If I hadn't drawn a line in the sand, said to myself I wasn't going to settle for the low local ceiling, and start looking, I'd be making <$15/hr here today.
I think Millennials often come in two varieties. Either go getters or chronic victims without a lot in between.
I don't know if I'd go that far. I live in a small town in Tennessee. It's a very sticky place - few people come or go.
I'd say at least half of the top third or so of my high school graduating class left the area by the end of undergrad, at the latest. Some were the upwardly mobile, professional types. An acquaintance of mine from high school has led speech engineering efforts on various products at Microsoft. There's a self-made multimillionaire tech entrepreneur from my high school. Quite a few regular corporate types. Unless you work for the local medical system or have a rare bird job at Eastman Chemical Company, you're moving off. Those are the go-getters.
I know some victim types, but the majority of people, even if they don't have a great job and complain about it, stay because it is a known quantity and it is where they and their families are from.
As it did for the largest sub-cohort of Boomers. Rolling recessions starting around 1973 into the 1980s with a major meltdown in the late 1970s which saw entire industries, mostly in manufacturing, collapse and not return. That was coupled with double digit inflation and unemployment as well as interest rates topping 20%.
Yep. I entered the workforce to an unemployment rate higher than anything in the Great Recession under Dubya/Obama coupled with double digit inflation. I did fine but I had good grades from a good college with a challenging engineering/technical degree. I had big school loans that I had to pay off. Most of my friends didn't fare so well. Room mates. Beater cars. Not a heck of a lot of discretionary spending.
The difference is that the late Boomers didn't grow up expecting a 5%er lifestyle. Things were far more modest then. 1,500 square foot houses. Shared bedrooms. Used cars. The family vacation was likely to be a pop-up tent or camping. The view on television was pretty basic middle class life.
It's a huge kick in the teeth to discover that your High School 'C' grades, 2 years at community college, and 2 years at an unselective college getting a non-hard degree doesn't magically grant you a 5%er lifestyle. Google isn't knocking on your door offering you a $200K job and a pile of stock options. You're not moving into that big house with the granite/stainless kitchen like on House Hunters.
One thing that I didn't understand at the time, and that I think colleges and universities do a very poor job of explaining, is how significant the local economy in the geographic area where you intend to work after graduation is.
Why would a university have to explain that? It's pretty basic. I grew up in a place that has always been an economic catastrophe 60 miles south of Boston. The top-20% of every High School class vanishes the minute they graduate from college unless they went the health care or attorney track where they could live anywhere. At my 40th reunion, that top-20% was sprayed all over the country and largely in places with tons of economic opportunity. I lived in the various more prosperous corners of New England but I didn't come back until I could afford a coastal summer house in town where I could telecommute from it in the summer. Several of us did the summer house thing.
One thing that I didn't understand at the time, and that I think colleges and universities do a very poor job of explaining, is how significant the local economy in the geographic area where you intend to work after graduation is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GeoffD
Why would a university have to explain that? It's pretty basic. I grew up in a place that has always been an economic catastrophe 60 miles south of Boston. The top-20% of every High School class vanishes the minute they graduate from college unless they went the health care or attorney track where they could live anywhere. At my 40th reunion, that top-20% was sprayed all over the country and largely in places with tons of economic opportunity. I lived in the various more prosperous corners of New England but I didn't come back until I could afford a coastal summer house in town where I could telecommute from it in the summer. Several of us did the summer house thing.
I took SC's comment to mean that students need to understand (with the help of the university, and other entities that are guiding/setting expectations) that it's an important factor. Students often get super hung up these days on pursuing a narrow niche of some academic topic they are interested in, without thinking about where the jobs really are for that. I'm in a profession where the vast majority of the jobs are in urban areas, i.e. it's not realistic to expect to find a position in Smalltown, KS when you graduate (and no, you will not be working remotely as an entry-level e'ee). So if your dream is to live on a country farm miles away from your neighbor, it would probably be advisable to pick a different career path rather than wrangling over which "specialty" of this career you should shoot for initially.
I think it's easy to say that students should know to consider this, but unfortunately many of them do not because that's not the message they've been fed for years now (which is "follow your passion").
One thing that I didn't understand at the time, and that I think colleges and universities do a very poor job of explaining, is how significant the local economy in the geographic area where you intend to work after graduation is.
One issue here is that it assumes that graduates will be jobseeking in the local economy, when many attend school far from where they are from and/or will end up. My undergrad institution had students from all 50 states and a number of nations. Shall college reps be experts on an endless number of diverse economic landscapes? That seems unrealistic. Students do have the ability to research and examine the job market in various places they are interested in living and working. Due diligence shouldn't be presumed out of reach.
To be honest, I don't really understand the mentality that colleges should do so much more h intensive shepherding of students through very basic life skills such as gaining a rudimentary awareness of job markets.
Thinking critically about how you will put the skills and knowledge you are gaining to fruitful use in a way that best benefits you is NOT something that should be out of reach for college students. Keep communicating to college-bound and college-attending young adults that they are helpless and can't possibly figure out life without copious handholding by a higher authority, and all you will get is an ever-increasing population of young people who fulfill that prophecy, and lack the skills, confidence, and self-efficacy to manage their adult lives properly.
For some schools, the local economy really doesn't have much of an impact. Think Purdue in West Lafayette, IN. They have a terrific engineering program and are going to be a draw for kids all over the country and the world. The vast majority are not going to stay in West Lafayette, and many will not stay in Indiana or even the Midwest. They disperse all over the world, largely to the high cost, intellectual property creation metros on the coasts, with a sprinkling in major metros in the interior of the country.
When you're going down the academic tier to lesser state flagships, regional state universities, "average" private and religious schools, etc., those schools are educating a mostly local to regional student base for local to regional jobs. You've got a pile of those schools in my local area - East TN State University, Milligan College, Lincoln Memorial University, King College, Tusculum College, UVA-Wise (this is part of the UVA system so it has some merit). You'll find the pattern repeated across the country.
None of these schools are really forthcoming with the reality that, even if you have a "good" major, you will probably not be employable in the local economy. What demand is there for accounting new accounting grads in rural Virginia? Practically zip. Unless you work for the local medical system, government, or the F500 and its credit union, you're going to make chicken scratch in IT/CS. That's if you can even find a relevant job.
It's not just the underwater basket weavers that are doing poorly - in places like where I am, not many people are doing well. I'm extremely fortunate that I was able to get back on track professionally. Most of my peers who got off track never got back on.
Of course, the economy has been doing better for years, but I stand by my assertion that economic anxieties caused a lot of psychological damage/depression in older Millennials. Kids that graduated college in the last four or five years really didn't have to deal with the worse of that.
For some schools, the local economy really doesn't have much of an impact. Think Purdue in West Lafayette, IN. They have a terrific engineering program and are going to be a draw for kids all over the country and the world. The vast majority are not going to stay in West Lafayette, and many will not stay in Indiana or even the Midwest. They disperse all over the world, largely to the high cost, intellectual property creation metros on the coasts, with a sprinkling in major metros in the interior of the country.
When you're going down the academic tier to lesser state flagships, regional state universities, "average" private and religious schools, etc., those schools are educating a mostly local to regional student base for local to regional jobs. You've got a pile of those schools in my local area - East TN State University, Milligan College, Lincoln Memorial University, King College, Tusculum College, UVA-Wise (this is part of the UVA system so it has some merit). You'll find the pattern repeated across the country.
None of these schools are really forthcoming with the reality that, even if you have a "good" major, you will probably not be employable in the local economy. What demand is there for accounting new accounting grads in rural Virginia? Practically zip. Unless you work for the local medical system, government, or the F500 and its credit union, you're going to make chicken scratch in IT/CS. That's if you can even find a relevant job.
It's not just the underwater basket weavers that are doing poorly - in places like where I am, not many people are doing well. I'm extremely fortunate that I was able to get back on track professionally. Most of my peers who got off track never got back on.
Of course, the economy has been doing better for years, but I stand by my assertion that economic anxieties caused a lot of psychological damage/depression in older Millennials. Kids that graduated college in the last four or five years really didn't have to deal with the worse of that.
And that, quite frankly, is what many such as myself can't wrap our heads around. Why them? Other generations graduated in as bad if not worse times and sucked it up and worked through it.
I sent out 251 applications for teaching jobs, 1/2 of the systems in PA plus 1. Got one interview in PA. One.
Got one more in Maryland. Picked this sorry, broken down fighter pilot ass up and moved.
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