Posted on 12/14/2008 4:39:43 AM PST by Rebelbase
Life was supposed to evolve this way: Study hard, graduate from high school, go to college.
Study hard, graduate from college, get a good job.
Work hard and earn a promotion that nets more money and more responsibility. Maybe fall in love, get married and have a kid or two.
Buy a house.
Take vacations.
Prosper.
That’s what many members of generations X and Y expected out of life. Most were wearing OshKosh or diapers or were a mere twinkle in their parents’ eyes the last time America faced a prolonged recession.
No one ever mentioned hiring freezes, layoffs, foreclosures or repossessions to them. Not one thought of earning a business degree only to search for a job for months on end. There was never a word about having the promise of a home deferred by an economic downturn.
Inflation and deflation were just vocabulary words.
Now it’s reality for many 20- and 30-somethings, who are feeling the anxiety of living through their first recession.
As a student taking 18 credit hours at N.C. A&T, serving on the university yearbook, working as the features editor for the campus newspaper, shepherding students as a residential assistant — all while maintaining her spot on the dean’s list — Alexandria Harper can be described with one word: overachiever.
Her reward came at A&T’s December commencement, where she walked the stage a semester ahead of schedule to receive a degree in liberal studies .
Just don’t ask what she’ll do next, other than returning to her childhood room in her parent’s Westerville, Ohio, home.
“Not because I’m not accomplished,” the 22-year-old said. “I’ve had internships. It’s because of the economy.”
That has her a bit stressed.
She’s facing a nine-month void until she starts graduate school and, so far, nothing to fill it.
She’s hoping for something that will advance a career in her chosen field, print journalism. She has even inquired about working for free.
No takers.
“I’m applying for scholarships and keeping my fingers crossed,” Harper said.
The alternative is settling for ... anything.
“I’ll have to do what I don’t want to: Make a living doing something that may not interest me to make ends meet,” she said.
This is not how she imagined her undergraduate career ending.
“I’m really, really nervous. I know I have what it takes. I have the knowledge. I have the drive. What I don’t have is the security.”
Vivian Lutian is always ready with an encouraging comment, but these days, she’s stocked with more than just words.
“I’ve had to buy more Kleenex,” said Lutian, an adult career counselor at Guilford College who works with students who are older than 24.
Lutian has worked in the career counseling business for more than a decade, and she has seen economic ups and downs. But the mood of the students coming to see her this semester has tangibly changed.
“I’m getting a lot more people who are emotionally upset, coming in in tears,” Lutian said. “Either they’re being laid off or they’ve been fired or they’ve been out looking for a job far too long, in their opinion.”
The National Bureau of Economic Research recently affirmed what people’s pocketbooks had been telling them: The country is in a recession and has been for months.
Not all the news is bad, though. More than 70 employers signed up for Guilford’s job fair last month, topping the number from last year.
But in the Triad, Lutian said, job opportunities tend to be in the service industry.
“Maybe it’s OK while you’re going to college, but it’s certainly not what they want to be doing when they finish,” she said. “That’s a part of the problem. The types of jobs that are available are not the things people consider to be a career. They’re jobs.”
Processing the economy’s free fall means balancing reality against perception. Having come of age in boom times, younger generations aren’t prepared for the fact that the careers they planned for may not be available now that they’re ready.
“They’re getting frightened, and they’re feeling like they’re never going to find anything,” Lutian said. “I’ve just felt a lot of pessimism, a lot of heaviness.”
“There are still jobs out there, and I’m still encouraging my students to go after them. Be patient because it’s going to take longer. It absolutely will take longer than you expected.”
This spring, the world looked rosy for Brian and Deanna Miller.
Deanna Miller, 35, had landed a new job with a significant salary increase. The timing seemed perfect for her and her husband to move out of their two-bedroom apartment and buy a house.
“We had talked to a mortgage lender, gotten pre-approved for a mortgage and were looking at houses online,” she said.
Then summer came, and Brian Miller’s hours were cut from 40 hours a week to 30. He found out Monday that his job was being eliminated.
“The company he worked for sells lighting fixtures and ceiling fans, and mainly deals with new construction,” Deanna Miller said. “There’s not a lot of houses being built.”
That means no house for the Millers either.
“We can’t risk moving out of the apartment — with the rent that we know we can afford with no problems, with the utilities we know we can afford — to move into a house where we can end up being ‘house poor,’ ” she said.
“It’s made us say we have to stay where we’re at now. There’s enough room.”
Brian Miller, 27, is looking for new work, preferably a position that would put his bachelor’s degree in human development and family studies and his master’s degree in public health to good use.
But the pickings are slim.
“It’s become a part-time job looking for ... another job,” his wife said. “He’s online. I’m online. We talk to people.”
Meanwhile, the couple has cut back.
“We don’t eat out as much,” Deanna Miller said. “I clip coupons religiously.”
“I told a friend of mine that, for the first time, I’ve really, really realized I’m an adult. I’m having to deal with taxes ... and really be concerned about job security. It’s completely changed.”
Ash Jones is idling at one of life’s intersections.
On the one hand, he’d love to study law.
“I’m very analytical,” said the Greensboro College senior. “I love researching and reading. That definitely gives me some desire to go toward a law-oriented job.”
What he doesn’t want is the crush of student loan repayments that could come after graduate school. He’s living on loans now and is worried about paying off those debts.
He’s not even sure how much he owes.
“I haven’t looked at the figure in a year,” Jones said. “I’m scared to do so. I’m not sure if I want to look at it and the interest on it all.”
On the other hand, he could get a job. If he can find one.
“The way I looked at it when I got into school was that a college degree equaled a good job,” Jones said. “The economy has changed so much in the five years that I have a different perspective right now. Having a college degree doesn’t necessarily mean getting a good job anymore.”
Jones, 30, was a bit of a late bloomer. While many of his peers set off for college, graduated and started careers, Jones was just approaching the starting line.
“I was in the military for a while. When I got out, I just roamed around and wasted a few years of my life,” said Jones, a political science major minoring in ethics.
Those days are behind him, and his spring graduation looms. But first, he needs to decide which way to turn.
“Being 30 and starting off late, the question is, do I want to put myself in college longer, incur more loans and cause more of a financial burden on myself? Or do I want to just get out with a four-year degree, a bachelor’s degree, and get on the road with that?”
He sits at the proverbial intersection, idling.
Lucy Paschal won’t remember her first recession. At 6 months old, her biggest concern is a fresh diaper and ample food.
But the economy is making an impression on her parents, 29-year-old Michael Paschal Jr. and his wife, Courtney .
“Though neither of us has lost a job, we are still struggling to pay our bills right now,” said Courtney, 30 . “I feel like I’m constantly playing catch-up.”
They’ve dissected their budget to see what can be trimmed. Netflix didn’t survive the scrutiny. Neither did the gym membership.
And that weekly trip to the grocery store?
“It’s not a weekly thing anymore at all,” Courtney said. “Now it’ll be two or three weeks.”
But Courtney has one thing going for her: perspective.
“My husband was going to trade in his car to get a more family-friendly car,” she said. But “because things are the way they are, it’s hard to get loans. We don’t have the money to outright pay for that stuff.”
The Paschals are renters who aspire not to be. She knows it may take them a few years for that goal to be attainable.
“That’s OK,” she said. “We have plenty of room.”
“If you’re looking at 401(k)s and things like that, yes, obviously, I’ve taken a hit on that,” she said.
“But the good news for people our age is that there’s plenty of time for it to go back up.”
It was just supposed to be all roses and lilies!
Learning how to make it in hard times will better prepare us for the Good Times.
Sacrifice, Humility, and Grit are things many of us need reminding of.
Young adults live through their first recession.
To many that still have jobs it’s a recession.
To many that have lost lost their jobs it’s a depression.
With those qualifications he should consider becoming a pimp.
Parents have been so busy making sure their kids had what they didn't have, growing up, that they forgot to pass on what they did have.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
“It was just supposed to be all roses and lilies!”
The recession of the late ‘70s/early ‘80s was really something. I remember 22% interest rates on loans, inflation and no money around. We actually had a barter exchange set up where I could trade legal work for wood or gasoline or plumbing/electrical work. Thursdays I’d often go up and down the main street of our town seeing if my clients could pay a little something on their bill! I had left my job as an associate in a law firm and had opened my own practice. We had a new baby by 1980 but I think we were too dumb to be scared. In any event, most everyone we knew were in the same boat. She Who Must Be Obeyed calls those times our “Water stew and chicken liver days.” We survived and so will today’s young folks.
Oh, c’mon, cut her some slack. After all, I’m sure there were kids looking to break into the horse & buggy whip industry in the ‘20s.
Those liberal art PC degrees aren’t going very far are they? We are infested with illegal alien labor And worthless college grads with social sci. degrees.
Then again, might be “Lord of the Flies.”
Her reward came at A&T’s December commencement, where she walked the stage a semester ahead of schedule to receive a degree in liberal studies .
This kills me. Liberal Studies? Come on now. What really makes me angry is that about five years ago they were saying that having a liberal studies or liberal arts depending on the name of the degree (both the same) was beneficial because it gives you an overall outlook on things. Those professional advisors did not have any future outlook other than that day apparently. I think liberal studies should only be allowed for those wanting to learn for themselves but not for any sort of career...just for fun!!! lol.
While she writes, she can still get a job at McDonalds or Walmart etc.
The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts
Education is something I will encourage (and by encourage I mean, if you feel you are grown enough to be out of school, you are grown enough to move out of my house), but it isn’t the guarantee of success that generations have made it out to be. I didn’t not finish college, but many who did came to me on my knowledge of insurance laws that came from just experience of reading and referring to them over the years.
My grandfather (who died in 1965)went to the 2nd grade but was wicked smart. He designed blueprints and had a genius mind for equations and such. When he died, they replaced him with a 4 year college graduate to do the things he did and even lost business because his (my grandfather) buildings were so sturdy and had such a vast use of space he had a reputation for states around. He designed barns for free as his act of goodness the bible spoke of.
College is great, but people place too much emphasis on the piece of paper rather than what the classes taught while earning that paper.
This is not to discredit college as there are many more valuable things to learn there and I wish I had went myself. But I just hated to see freshly grad student waltz into my office with the idea that they knew far more than me and I had real life experience of how the world worked in my field. I usually had them straightened out in a year or so and they ended up being fine employees.
Liberal studeies....... plastic degree in a technical world
“Those liberal art PC degrees aren’t going very far are they?”
Well, I majored in Classics and had a minor in theology; hardly what I would call “practical”, but they stood me in good stead because I had a broad enough worldview to know I could make it on my own, with my own business. Liberal Arts education makes the graduate flexible and gives him some perspective. Just my opinion, but I think we have become plagued with “specialists” who are too intellectually brittle to successfully respond to changed economic circumstances.
“We are infested with illegal alien labor And worthless college grads with social sci. degrees.”
Illegal aliens, like the legal ones of my youth, aren’t much competition for college grads.
And once that first job is landed, then the formula for success is what it has always been---work hard, live within your means, save as much as you can, pay off any debt you have, and avoid new debt.
Agreed! The really bad thing is that’s she’s waiting for graduate school to start!
Ummm..
He’s not even sure how much he owes.
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