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.”
I stopped reading right there. This young woman wants to be a journalist, and isn't smart enough to be reading the news and doing the research that says it's a dying field.
What a pathetic article. These young folks don’t know the meaning of recession or many other kinds of hardships.
And if you had gone to college and taken English Grammar you would have known to write “I wish I had gone” rather than “I wish I had went.”
I made good scratch in the corporate world in my 'suit jobs' wrote in my off hours and had great material to draw from.
In short, I did what I did to survive. I didn't expect to be a rock star straight out of college. Didn't get the big jobs until I'd slugged it in the trenches for several years, buckled down even to earn some financial licenses that helped me write for mutual funds and investment houses. It wasn't all sexy rockstar fun and glamour, but hey -- it paid the bills.
My best friend in grad school just had his seventh novel published, has a film coming out by Scorcese this year, and he drove limos and tended bar in the lean times. Kids today...
She’s hoping for something that will advance a career in her chosen field, print journalism
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
Jones, a political science major minoring in ethics.
My god! Doesn't anyone major in practical fields anymore!
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.
“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.
I think I see a pattern here.
Doesn’t anyone major in practical fields anymore!
No it requires thinking and hard work yes I will have fries with that.
Life is hard, Lanita. Most young graduates your age live in starter mansions and drive Lexus automobiles. It just isn’t fair. ~ sniff ~
Hey now! I have a BA in English and working on my MA in English Technical Communications, and I'm a systems engineer for a health care organization. Not everyone who goes to college does so in the pursuit of a specific track on which they're staking their lives. I happen to be a computer tinkerer, and I managed to get myself into a great job after college. Some people pursue what interests them, job market be damned! I knew full well that a degree in English wouldn't get me bupkiss, but I excelled in it and have some of my works published as a result.
That being said, these kids need to stop whining! I'm very late GenX (1980), and I spent over a year living with my mom while I got myself on my feet. Thanks to the ministry of Dave Ramsey, I got my life together, paid off my debts, and now I have a beautiful home, a good, stable job, and a decent amount of savings, even though most of that winds up in my gun safe. ;)
The whiny media pisses me off. These kids can find work. So what if they have to run a register at Office Depot for a few months? At least there's work out there to be had! I worked construction, did electrical apprentice work, plumbing, tile, stocked shelves at Publix, ran a Blockbuster video, and spent 4 hours every Saturday in a soup kitchen after I got out of college to make ends meet and occupy my time. These iPod drones don't know how to get off their lazy butts and find something productive to do!
Aren't young people entitled to goods times, prosperity and the life of Riley.
I'm almost GLAD we are facing hard times so the 20 something generation sheds their sense of entitlement mindset.
Things like:
You want me to work more than 8 hours a day and weekends !!
I won't take a job for less then $10.00 hr !!
I can't drive a USED car. Are you kidding me!!
What do you mean I can't have the new 360 X-Box for my birthday!!
You want me to pay rent for my room, but I need my money for the weekend !!
That is a really good idea.
Engineers with minors in languages are actually quite valuable.
Quit whimpering and suck it up, ya bunch of crybabies.
Take a 30 minute walk through a slum in Mumbai or outside of Manila, and watch the people there for a moment, and then come back to the US and its supermarkets with 45 different brands of dog food, and stfu.
1/3 of the people on this planet go to sleep tonight on an empty stomach that aches and growls, and maybe the better half of them will sleep out under the stars with cardboard as a pillow, open sewers a few meters perhaps from their heads at rest.
Or, otherwise, just do us all a favor, button it, and join the US military if you cannot find a job; and put in a few years defending the place that has spoiled you to the inner cores, and give something back to Uncle Sam while you ride this out.
>>[”Overachiever Alexandria Harper’s] 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.
Sorry to be a wet blanket, but overachievers don’t get degrees in “liberal studies”. They get degrees in Engineering, Accounting, Pre-Med, etc.
Liberal studies, and most degrees that contain the words “studies” or “science”, qualify you for the job of Starbucks barista, and that only after in-store training.
Anti-Political Science, Cheap shot Sarcasm TorpedoTM ARMED. FIRE!!
Does he mean ethics like this?
"In the book, Obama acknowledges that he used cocaine as a high school student but rejected heroin. "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though," he says."
Cheers!
Hey! That was my career goal.
Where I live, I'm seeing a different type of young folks.
Our Sunday School class at church is all young married couples with children. Several are actively getting out of debt. We planted our first community garden at the church this year. Several of the mothers are proficient sewers and make their own clothes.
Some are struggling, but most are making it on one income and the mothers stay home with the children.
We will weather this economy, but I suspect we may be a very small minority.
“Where I live, I’m seeing a different type of young folks.”
You must live in a different community than I do. I’m glad to hear of your young folks doing well. It’s encouraging.
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