Paul Angone's 3 Major Challenges Facing Millennials

There is a significant value gap between degrees held and jobs worked by Generation Y. Without available positions in their fields, Millennials must take unskilled jobs, while waiting for their elders to give turn. Millennials who are not educated and working toward a professional career are the hardest hit by situation, creating a new echelon of poor Americans. Economists think that Millennials should accept this current economic climate as the "new normal." (Kotkin 3).

To start, this shift towards a shared economy is giving Millennials a bad reputation. Instead of focusing on their spending habits, Huffington Post blogger, Tim Urban, targets the work ethics of the younger generations in his article, “Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy.” In fact, Urban believes that younger generations were too spoiled in their childhood, so by the time adulthood hit they were destined to be failures. In addition to

In the article “A Generation of Slackers? Not So Much”, by Catherine Rampell, the author analyzes and challenges the popular stigma that Millennials are the laziest generation to have ever existed. Rampell begins her article with a staggering fact: “The unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds is a whopping 17.6 percent” (Rampell 388). And according to seventy-five percent of Americans, “Today’s youth are less virtuous and industrious than their elders” (Rampell 388). This may seem like an incredibly high percentage of Americans, but you might be astonished to learn that even “Two-thirds of millennials said older adults were superior to the younger generation when it came

Millennials may be criticized, but they are a generation like no other. In the article “Why Millennials Will Save Us All,” Joel Stein asserts that millennials are a positive force of change. Stein’s intent is to convince his target audience, older generations who perceive millennials as “lazy, entitled, selfish and shallow” (28), that they misunderstand millennials. He boldly claims that “[millennials are] not a new species; they've just mutated to adapt to their environment” (31). Stein persuades his audience that millennials are most certainly a treasure trove of remarkable qualities.

In the article, Declining Student Resilience, Peter Gray states, “There has been an increase in diagnosable mental health problems, but there has also been a decrease in the ability of many young people to manage the everyday bumps in the road of life”. It has come up a lot that millennials do not have Grit, unlike other generations. Millennials come off as lazy or immature in society today. Millennials always have a reminder from their parents or grandparents, “back in my day....” or “you’re lucky, you have it easy”. Other generations give millennials a harder time on how they are performing in a school setting. Some generations believe that millennials are babied by their parents. Everyone has their own opinions about other generations. There are many similarities and differences between millennials and other generations on how they performed in schools. Some examples of how they are different and similar are work ethic, pressures, and technology. These examples come from actual opinions from millennials and other generations on their perspectives when comparing millennials and other generations in a school setting.

From my experience as a twenty-one-year-old, I have seen and heard my generation be talked down upon. We aren’t exactly considered to be in the ‘norm’ as one would say. I have been told that all we care about is going out and socializing, being glued to our electronics, spending all our time on social media, and countless other things in which cast a dark, lingering shadow over our reputation. But what those individuals don’t see is the immense drive we have. Yes, the population of millennials married and with children before the age of twenty-five has plummeted compared to those before us, but it doesn’t mean we don’t see those plans in our future. Us millennials have the incredible liberty to focus on our passions and dreams before deciding to settle down. Many turn to furthering their education and building a career, others stray from the beaten path. There is no correct, or preferred way of doing things such as there was before. We have an unlimited array of opportunities from which to chose from.

In the article, “Declining Student Resilience: A Serious Problem for Colleges”, Peter Gray states, “There has been an increase in diagnosable mental health problems, but there has also been a decrease in the ability of many young people to manage the everyday bumps in the road of life”. It has come up a lot that millennials do not have Grit, unlike other generations. Millennials come off as lazy or immature in society today. Millennials always have a reminder from their parents or grandparents saying, “back in my day....” or “you’re lucky, you have it easy”. Other generations tend to give millennials a harder time on how they are performing in a school setting. Some generations believe that millennials are babied by their parents. Everyone has their own opinions about other generations. There are many similarities and differences between millennials and other generations on how they perform in schools. Some examples on how they are different and similar are work ethic, pressure, and technology. These examples come from actual opinions from millennials and other generations on their perspectives when comparing millennials and other generations in a school setting.

Today, many adults look down on the Millennial generation and assume most of them possess negative traits such as laziness, narcissism, and entitlement without ever looking deeper into why these behaviors dominate so heavily within a distinct group of people. In the video “Simon Sinek on Millennials in the Workplace,” Sinek digs deeper to understand the origins of these ultimately harmful characteristics of those born roughly 1984 and after, not just looking at the surface level actions of these young people. The four main causes for the depressed and unmotivated behavior Sinek identifies are failed parenting, technology, impatience, and environment. To better depict the effects of these harmful and unfortunate traits, Sinek uses logos and

The Millennial Generation has been big news for a while, with them not wanting to go to college and preferring living life to making money, living their new American Dream. But now there's a new generation on the block. As MTV named them, the Founders Generation is a new generation that has been raised entirely with internet access and smartphones. Some people believe that this new generation doesn’t have what it takes to achieve the American Dream. The Founders Generation can achieve the American Dream by using resources wisely in order to get a decent education, using their education to examine their strengths in order to build a career and by reaching a point in their career where they are economically prosperous.

In “Millennials Go To College” by Neil Howe and William Strauss, they discuss the demographic in detail and define seven core traits of millennials. They discuss this group as beginning to finish up college, a group mentality focus, and extremely diverse (Strauss & Howe, 2003). What this means is that this group is generally higher-educated, more focused on groups, communities, and teams rather than themselves, and in general the group is accepting of diversity and views all people as equal. These busy individuals are often over stimulated by the amount of work and extracurriculars that they take on. Howe and Strauss also observed seven core traits of this demographic group which has the potential to have an effect on the way this group views themselves and the way they are viewed by others. These traits are that they are “special, sheltered, confident, team-oriented, conventional, pressured, and achieving” (Strauss & Howe, 2003). Each of these characteristics affects the way that this group engages in the world around them. These traits follow them through education, work, and especially healthcare, with regard to current engagement and how they will engage in the future.

The circumstances that I understand to be difficult for millennials during their quarter-life crisis is that the belief that will be the best and make a significant impact in this world. The combination of the parents and the importance set on higher education coupled with the positive reinforcement that the millennial can achieve greatness as long as they work hard can be taxing. This can be a daunting task after the individual graduate’s college with a bachelor’s degree and the job prospects are not what they want to conquer the world. Philippe stated (p. 11),

In an interview of 2016, Simon Sinek analyses and discusses the topic of Millennials within the workplace. Throughout Sinek’s speech in his interview, he explains the disadvantages which Millennials have faced while growing up in their generation. Now, Sinek claims that the reason why Millennials have been dealt such a “bad hand” in life, is a result of failed parenting strategies, and an imbalance of technology along with social media (which has advanced like never before within the adolescence of Millennials). Therefore, the imbalance of the internet and real-life interaction results in millennials being unable to form deep and meaningful relationships, in order to carry out happy and meaningful live in comparison to previous

Across the nation, people are talking about the Millennial generation and how different they are compared to others, but are they really that different? Millennials are lazy, entitled, and selfish, or as you may have heard may be essential to the modern workplace, either way, they are being talked about whether it is good or bad. To put it in other words, past generations are concerned for what the future will look like with this technology-dependent generation, but is that a bad thing if the technology is only going to advance from here on out? The older generation is being too harsh or are they just genuinely concerned about the future? Joel Stein (2013) has written an article about the Millennials, it is titled Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation he argues for them being a selfish generation but by saying that it is not a bad thing. The second article is by Liz Zarka (2017) Generation Me: The Millennial Generation’s obsession with being unique, she argues that they are the generation that needs to be concerned for. After reading both of these articles I agree with some of the points that both of these authors make, however, there are also some sections that I disagree with. My perception of the situation is that millennials may have all these negative characteristics but use them to an advantage that no other generation can has; along with the advancement of technology and the use of social media may have increased the narcissistic trait in them, but they use these traits to get what they want, however, being narcissistic isn’t always good there can certainly be some disadvantages.

There are high expectations for the Millennials and they need to be ready to take on the responsibility. Literacy and numerical skills are pivotal in the workforce and Millennials requisite to upsurge their skills to be successful. Once Millennials obtain substantial skills they will be qualified for employment and the world will stop looking down on them. Focusing on always improving weaknesses has been a good ideology to becoming exquisite.

According to recent research, Millennials (75.5 million) have edged out the Baby Boomers (74.9 million), who are retiring, as the fastest growing group in the United States, with Generation X lagging behind (66 million) (Fry, 2016). By the year 2020, Millennials will account for half of the workforce and their impact on the economic is contingent upon how the economy is doing at that time (Shin, 2015). The Education Testing Service found although Millennials are receiving more education than any other generational group, they may lose their competitive edge against international peers (Twaronite, 2015).