Wandering Through Extended Adolescence
G-Money's thoughtful and well-reasoned response to my response brings up a number of interesting points about a number of interesting things. While I don't consider myself qualified to comment on ambition -- I don't currently and never will work in a field where ambition is really a factor -- I would like to address his points on Education and, perhaps more importantly, Extended Adolescence.
I knew when I started down the path to a liberal-arts degree that it wouldn't lead to a job, but I did it anyway. Music History was unemployable and I knew it, but it interested me and so I studied it. I had a plan for a career that would include Music History when I started, but now those plans have changed; I consider myself lucky that I am qualified to go back to school to study something that will lead to a career. That said, I very much agree with G-Money's assessment of "non-traditional" fields of study, and I would further observe that this trend began in the late Seventies with the addition of Communications departments to college and university faculties. Colleges and universities don't do anything to help their students -- who are indeed accustomed to entitlements (I'll get to that in a minute) -- realize that there will be no job on the other end if they major in liberal-arts fields. The interesting thing about Minnesota is that, even if you major in a field that should get you a job upon graduation, things are so tight here that you might be stuck anyway. Witness not only Mme. Flamingo's experience, but also the two-year sax-teaching limbo patiently waited-out by G-Money. Something needs to change on college campuses, but change is slow and difficult to adopt.
As for extended adolescence, I am in full agreement. Witness the vast numbers of college graduates across the country who actually plan to live at home after spending four years or more living on their own. For every one of us who has moved out and moved on, there are at least four who have not. These people are, as G-Money rightly stated, traveling to Europe and focusing on personal enjoyment. And we are part of the largest entitlement culture since the adults who grew up in the Gilded Age. Those twenty-somethings became the Lost Generation when they all left town to find themselves in Paris and London, but if that's what we're doing, then where are our Hemingways and Fitzgeralds? They're probably living in their parents' basements, ordering pizza, and playing Grand Theft Auto San Andreas.
What can I say? I'm a lazy person too. I expect things to come naturally to me as much as any of my Boom Echo compatriots. What we lack -- in addition to people who can be our friends in the workplace -- is a "voice of the generation" figure. Now, I may or may not be working toward something which could accomplish that; on my good days, I think I might be. On every other day, I realize that, even though I'm working towards an MA which has a career attached to it, I too am drifting aimlessly through my twenties. I don't know if G-Money feels this himself or not, but to label us The Wandering Generation is spot-on.
There's no solution except for those of us who are working to wait for the rest of our buddies to catch up to us. It'll happen eventually. Until then we're stuck -- as The Kat put it -- in the conference room eating our bag lunches over forced conversation with people to whom we have no chance of meaningfully relating. I leave every day for lunch too, and for the same reason. It is indeed a sad state of affairs.
I knew when I started down the path to a liberal-arts degree that it wouldn't lead to a job, but I did it anyway. Music History was unemployable and I knew it, but it interested me and so I studied it. I had a plan for a career that would include Music History when I started, but now those plans have changed; I consider myself lucky that I am qualified to go back to school to study something that will lead to a career. That said, I very much agree with G-Money's assessment of "non-traditional" fields of study, and I would further observe that this trend began in the late Seventies with the addition of Communications departments to college and university faculties. Colleges and universities don't do anything to help their students -- who are indeed accustomed to entitlements (I'll get to that in a minute) -- realize that there will be no job on the other end if they major in liberal-arts fields. The interesting thing about Minnesota is that, even if you major in a field that should get you a job upon graduation, things are so tight here that you might be stuck anyway. Witness not only Mme. Flamingo's experience, but also the two-year sax-teaching limbo patiently waited-out by G-Money. Something needs to change on college campuses, but change is slow and difficult to adopt.
As for extended adolescence, I am in full agreement. Witness the vast numbers of college graduates across the country who actually plan to live at home after spending four years or more living on their own. For every one of us who has moved out and moved on, there are at least four who have not. These people are, as G-Money rightly stated, traveling to Europe and focusing on personal enjoyment. And we are part of the largest entitlement culture since the adults who grew up in the Gilded Age. Those twenty-somethings became the Lost Generation when they all left town to find themselves in Paris and London, but if that's what we're doing, then where are our Hemingways and Fitzgeralds? They're probably living in their parents' basements, ordering pizza, and playing Grand Theft Auto San Andreas.
What can I say? I'm a lazy person too. I expect things to come naturally to me as much as any of my Boom Echo compatriots. What we lack -- in addition to people who can be our friends in the workplace -- is a "voice of the generation" figure. Now, I may or may not be working toward something which could accomplish that; on my good days, I think I might be. On every other day, I realize that, even though I'm working towards an MA which has a career attached to it, I too am drifting aimlessly through my twenties. I don't know if G-Money feels this himself or not, but to label us The Wandering Generation is spot-on.
There's no solution except for those of us who are working to wait for the rest of our buddies to catch up to us. It'll happen eventually. Until then we're stuck -- as The Kat put it -- in the conference room eating our bag lunches over forced conversation with people to whom we have no chance of meaningfully relating. I leave every day for lunch too, and for the same reason. It is indeed a sad state of affairs.
posted by Buckwalter at 1:00 PM
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