Recently, blog posts and magazine articles slamming my generation as “spoiled, entitled brats” have been popping up like crazy. Apparently we are all “too entitled” and we wander about with the “misconception” that we are owed – by society, by our respective undergraduate universities, by our family and friends – some sort of lifestyle of grandeur. And you know what, I don’t disagree. I am right up there with people who think that we’re too entitled. HOWEVER – I don’t look at that as a bad thing. We grew up differently than our parents and our grandparents. We worked our butts off to get into college, and grad school because right now, a bachelor’s degree just won’t cut it anymore. When my parents were my age, if you had a bachelor’s degree you were golden. Now, if you have a bachelor’s degree it’s basically the equivalent of a high school diploma – it has become the expectation that everyone applying for entry-level jobs should have “a bachelor’s degree in a related field, masters degree preferred, and at least 1-3 years experience” (The 1-3 years experience for an entry-level position is a whole different tangent all together).
But damn straight I think that after all my hard work I think I deserve a good job. I understand the concept of starting at the bottom and working my way up, believe me – I get it. And I think that the only way you can learn is to start at the bottom. No one becomes a CEO over night. But I don’t think it is unreasonable for 20-somethings who completed high school, college and perhaps even grad school, to expect that somehow – that hard work should be paying off for us right about now.
And where do I think this “entitlement” came from? Well – I, for one, worked my butt off for 16 years (1st through 12th grade + 4 years of undergrad… I didn’t include Kindergarten, since there was so much napping involved). AND to be quite honest, I didn’t work as hard as some other people I know did. I took AP classes in high school, made the honor roll every quarter, took the SATs, was involved in sports, did volunteer work – even participated in a drama production once (… ok so I was the make-up artist, but I still did it!). And there were always those people who were better than me – and that’s fine. In college… maybe I had a little more fun than was necessary, but I still worked [almost] just as hard as I played. I went to class, did my assignments, got fairly good grades on my exams (which could have been better if I hadn’t been playing so much), had a part-time job but I was also extremely active within my sorority & the Greek system as a whole. I spend hundreds of hours planning a very large, very successful charity event. I did three internships – one of which required me to work 10 to 12 hours days, 5 or 6 days per week with pretty much not 1 “perk”. And that wasn’t the type of internship where I was getting people coffee and filing paperwork all day. It was real work.
So yeah – after all that hard work, I think that my first job out of college should have been something better than a receptionist. Did I take the job – yes. Did I stay in that position long – no. (And, by the way, the requirement for that job was the minimum of a bachelor’s degree.) I basically created a new position within the company and got “promoted” to it. But did I think it was fair that even though I was taking on more and more responsibility I wasn’t necessarily being recognized for it? No, I didn’t. So what did I do about it? I set out for bigger & better things – law school.
And I am going to work hard at that too. Knowing full well that when I graduate in 3 years, the only jobs available to me will probably be really low-paying clerking jobs. Big firms aren’t hiring anymore. Even medium sized firms aren’t hiring. Small firms were probably never hiring. And yes, in 3 years I will be frustrated and I will think that after spending a grand total of $160k on my education (not including interest, since it was all taken out in student loans which I will be paying off) that I am entitled to more.
I don’t think it’s wrong for people my age to feel “entitled”. For those of us who worked out butts off, I think it’s completely reasonable that we’re disgruntled that currently the only jobs we can find are willing to pay us peanuts (I took a job where the starting salary was $28k per year!), and it is taking us MONTHS to find those jobs. A $28k per year job is NOT going to pay my $160k in student loans. I have a friend who went to a GREAT undergraduate college, where she had to take out double what I did in student loans per year. She still hasn’t been able to find a job – 1.5 years after graduation, even though she got AMAZING grades, went to a great school, did a ton of internships, and was actively involved in just about every organization on campus. So – does she have the right to feel more than just a little frustrated, uhm yeah – I think so.
So, the moral of the story is do I think 20-somethings of my generation are “entitled”? Yes. Do I think it is a bad thing, absolutely not. I think we have every right to feel frustrated and fed-up with the fact that all our hard word is yielding very few rewards.
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