What does it mean to be a 20-something?
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- Nov 12, 2008
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Well I am 20 (almost 21), so I am at the tail end of this group. What I would say is, there is a lot expected of us. The older generations are itching to pass on the torch to us and have us fix all the problems in the world. I am a little neverous about this because it seems like their expectations of us are a little too high.
This past weekend, I went to the NCUR (national conference for undergraduate research) in Missoula, MT. There were many speakers there, but the one that stood out alot to me was a speech given by the governer of Montana, Brian Schweitzer. Let me say first of all that he gives really really good speeches. He brought up early on that it is often said the "greatest generation" was the people who were young durring WWII. They had to fight through some of the hardest times, and live just so they could work for others to save what they held dear to them. He then switched gears, and said that the greatest generation, was actually mine. We have the greatest challenge to face yet; energy. Independent of global warming, and the environmental impacts of fossil fuels, they are running out, and they will be gone shortly. It is our generations responsibillity to totally recreate how we use, save, and pass on energy.
We also have quite a lot of social changes going on throughout the world. Countries are on the edge, ready to snap, all because of sociopolitical reasons. We have to solve this, whether it is to fight, or disarm, or ignore. It's unknown what to do.
There is a lot expected of us, and we are being told we are going to slow as it is. It's a lot of pressure.
This past weekend, I went to the NCUR (national conference for undergraduate research) in Missoula, MT. There were many speakers there, but the one that stood out alot to me was a speech given by the governer of Montana, Brian Schweitzer. Let me say first of all that he gives really really good speeches. He brought up early on that it is often said the "greatest generation" was the people who were young durring WWII. They had to fight through some of the hardest times, and live just so they could work for others to save what they held dear to them. He then switched gears, and said that the greatest generation, was actually mine. We have the greatest challenge to face yet; energy. Independent of global warming, and the environmental impacts of fossil fuels, they are running out, and they will be gone shortly. It is our generations responsibillity to totally recreate how we use, save, and pass on energy.
We also have quite a lot of social changes going on throughout the world. Countries are on the edge, ready to snap, all because of sociopolitical reasons. We have to solve this, whether it is to fight, or disarm, or ignore. It's unknown what to do.
There is a lot expected of us, and we are being told we are going to slow as it is. It's a lot of pressure.
Well i am twenty and you know, i am going turn 21 on this upcoming october.
Okay, for me how i spend this year.
This age is very difficult to understand. Many responsibilities arises at this age. I think, if you try to understand others, try to be co-operative and focus more on your thoughts, this is better.
Okay, for me how i spend this year.
This age is very difficult to understand. Many responsibilities arises at this age. I think, if you try to understand others, try to be co-operative and focus more on your thoughts, this is better.
To drink drink drink drink drink, smoke pot, drink, have sex, and hate anyone whose differnet than you. We're entitled to everything except those that require effort. We're faced with some of the biggest challenges in history but we're too lazy to do anything other than sign an online petition.
- Nov 12, 2008
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I'm sorry I don't agree with this at all. To assume everyone is like this will doom us from the start. Yes not everyone in our generation is a shining star, but every generation is like that. To assume just because a large portion of them fit this bill, nothing will come of it, is a huge folly.
A horrifying mess of challenge and lack of real personal direction. Where too old to be kids but too young to be really where we want to be as adults. A horribly confusing time that's for sure. We are just trying to make in the world and it seems that we have a ways to go.
I can pretty much relate to this after all I do believe we are included as part of this generation you are speaking of. We do indeed face a lot of challenges and we do have a lot of expectations and goals to accomplish. Seeing great minds like yours makes me more and more optimistic about building a better future though
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My quote is a reflection of what I see around me it will not doom it will inform. I live in a place where we are averaging 3 shootings a day, the local high school has a 63% graduation rate, and we're dropping out of college in record numbers. From what I can gather from those around me, (like BB said) they completely lack personal direction, because of this most are throwing their hands up and saying 'screw it' but are still expecting the problems to be solved. I
100% i am giving to this question.
If i receive any challenges from this age group, i try to look at them as opportunity to learn new skills and develop yourself. I go to make more errors, i mean triple error rate so you can learn more.
Sometimes it becomes hard to associate because of personality conflictions.
My mom gives me that creepy look whenever I play with babies and asks me when she can be a grandma but I ignore her or tell her she also has a son and to put her faith in him for grandkids.
Other than that, I'm your typical North American Scum. Still in college, after years and years of screwing up and switching majors half a dozen times.. Working multiple jobs just to pay the bills and only very occasionally going out for a beer with friends, though being too terrified to have more than one because a DUI could completely knock my world off axis.
What does it mean to be a 20 something? That I'm just beginning to work on building my own life, and it's a very fragile process. I worry about being homeless and going insane a lot.
Or maybe none of that is typical, and I'm just neurotic..
Other than that, I'm your typical North American Scum. Still in college, after years and years of screwing up and switching majors half a dozen times.. Working multiple jobs just to pay the bills and only very occasionally going out for a beer with friends, though being too terrified to have more than one because a DUI could completely knock my world off axis.
What does it mean to be a 20 something? That I'm just beginning to work on building my own life, and it's a very fragile process. I worry about being homeless and going insane a lot.
Or maybe none of that is typical, and I'm just neurotic..
I know how you feel about school. Me and school aren't friends not anymore.
I wonder how many 20's something have trouble findinga direction.
I feel like we where pushed in a certain way for so long then we just get told go your own way.
I feel like as a generation our parents (at least mine) pushed to hard and didn't let us find our own direction.
I also get the when are you going to do blank. Fill in blank with finish school, find an significant other, get married, find a job, get your life together and so on.
to be 20 something means you are plagued by uncertainty. You have the health of a teenager but the wisdom of an adult. You are usually trying to find yourself. You probably have seen people grow into bad situations and you have seen others succeed. Being mid-twenties is EXTREEEEEMMMEEEE!!!! and by 30 you should be seeing things through your rearview.
I'm a sophomore undergrad at K-state. Being 20 years old I've already done, and will continue, my fair share of drinking. Drunken debauchery isn't the hallmark of every college student. My friends and I will do it when we can and have our fun. Truly though I'm lucky I have friends that instead of wanting to go running around drunk just use it to relax and have more meaningful conversations than they would allow themselves to have while sober.
I was told this by an ex-boyfriend of a girlfriend of mine who was in college before enlisting as a submariner. I find it holds very true and you guys here have already alluded to it. He said...
"People in college are at a time they are most vulnerable, and in a place where they're close yet far away from home. You'll never find a time where so many people are drunk, high, or scared. They'll be more open than people you'll meet anywhere else if you just ask."
Now, I'm the big nerd of my little circle of friends. I'll just list off their majors and maybe set a temperament, I get drunk with them on a regular basis; English, journalism, political science, and architecture majors.
They'll tell me so many things about what they truly think about the world around them. Not just the poli-sci major (a conservative) whom I've had many a debate on gay marriage and abortion with (off topic but if I can't do something about her I'm afraid she'll be the next Anita Bryant). But the English major and journalist love to talk about how people think and where we're going.
We'll talk about
"Generation Me"
Morality, mostly from a nihilistic point of view
Effects of religion
Effects of market economy vs gift exchange cultures and how they affect individualism (the journalist is also an anthropology buff)
Individualism in general, is it really us as who we are or some product of influences from culture. I remember vaguely that sparked a rant by me about something relating to free will and our true inability to exercise it because we are already biased to things that people who came before us instilled in us. I can't be sure, this is the downside to drunkenness. Crucial details get lost and I'm not sure if I even believe what I was spouting.
Anyway. Most of the conclusions, while typically optimistic after everything was said and done, just don't seem to be enough to deal with the uncertainty of this age bracket I just entered. Like Blind Bandit said
In the mean time real life concerns are always present. Classes, studying, work, and for me soon to tag on research, like Indigo I make meth...er chemicals. I struggle to make it all work out and scrape by with a GPA that my advisers let slip by because they're just to happy to actually have an undergrad in their department.
On top of that I do teach a lab. That is without a doubt the highlight of my week. It's just a general chemistry lab (baby chem). The experiments are easy, rush-able, and nowhere near comprehensive to anything they learn in lecture. The students are much the same way too.
I have 14 kids in my lab, they are my precious ones (I swear that isn't creepy), my little insights into my field that I love so much yet others hate. All but two of them are younger than me, only by a year though. Not 20's but 19 is close and honestly 18-22 college range is just as applicable to a 20 something's experience with school. I see everything I always saw as a student while teaching them. Stress (I tell them something can kill them in lab all the time), sucking-up, disobedience, begging, and skipping corners. Granted I also get to see when they try. Try they will, but even for college students they are the Gen Chem students and so as far as sciences go they are bottom barrel. They develop so many misconceptions it throws me for a loop how people can think like they do. I'll of course always happily correct them and show them how things work. While I'm too tired to list them I can let you ponder and maybe I'll fill you in later.
However, in the end I see nothing from them but wanting to escape responsibility and run from problems. I'm guilty of it too on occasion, but I've always seen this and I've always despised it. Even when I just started out in school. I'd get called a teacher's pet but I wouldn't even have to do that. I've always been the kid that felt like he didn't belong with the other kids. I could never think in the way they do. Not because I like to believe I'm smart, but something more along the lines of not wanting to simply be mediocre. Teachers notice things like that, I know I do. I have a teacher's pet in my lab. She's about ready to show me her breasts on command if I asked. Yet there are three kids who try their hardest and will always ask me questions. The lab, while always fun, gives me hope yet makes me face a stark reality of the ever present attitude of 'just doing enough'.
That's plenty for now. I'd like to keep talking about this. I've hung around these forums as a guest for a few months now. Never commented though. Tonight I was finally feeling it.
Now I get my monkeys!
I was told this by an ex-boyfriend of a girlfriend of mine who was in college before enlisting as a submariner. I find it holds very true and you guys here have already alluded to it. He said...
"People in college are at a time they are most vulnerable, and in a place where they're close yet far away from home. You'll never find a time where so many people are drunk, high, or scared. They'll be more open than people you'll meet anywhere else if you just ask."
Now, I'm the big nerd of my little circle of friends. I'll just list off their majors and maybe set a temperament, I get drunk with them on a regular basis; English, journalism, political science, and architecture majors.
They'll tell me so many things about what they truly think about the world around them. Not just the poli-sci major (a conservative) whom I've had many a debate on gay marriage and abortion with (off topic but if I can't do something about her I'm afraid she'll be the next Anita Bryant). But the English major and journalist love to talk about how people think and where we're going.
We'll talk about
"Generation Me"
Morality, mostly from a nihilistic point of view
Effects of religion
Effects of market economy vs gift exchange cultures and how they affect individualism (the journalist is also an anthropology buff)
Individualism in general, is it really us as who we are or some product of influences from culture. I remember vaguely that sparked a rant by me about something relating to free will and our true inability to exercise it because we are already biased to things that people who came before us instilled in us. I can't be sure, this is the downside to drunkenness. Crucial details get lost and I'm not sure if I even believe what I was spouting.
Anyway. Most of the conclusions, while typically optimistic after everything was said and done, just don't seem to be enough to deal with the uncertainty of this age bracket I just entered. Like Blind Bandit said
I struggle with finding something to believe. Whatever it ends up being it'll be something I find on my own and pass along later.
In the mean time real life concerns are always present. Classes, studying, work, and for me soon to tag on research, like Indigo I make meth...er chemicals. I struggle to make it all work out and scrape by with a GPA that my advisers let slip by because they're just to happy to actually have an undergrad in their department.
On top of that I do teach a lab. That is without a doubt the highlight of my week. It's just a general chemistry lab (baby chem). The experiments are easy, rush-able, and nowhere near comprehensive to anything they learn in lecture. The students are much the same way too.
I have 14 kids in my lab, they are my precious ones (I swear that isn't creepy), my little insights into my field that I love so much yet others hate. All but two of them are younger than me, only by a year though. Not 20's but 19 is close and honestly 18-22 college range is just as applicable to a 20 something's experience with school. I see everything I always saw as a student while teaching them. Stress (I tell them something can kill them in lab all the time), sucking-up, disobedience, begging, and skipping corners. Granted I also get to see when they try. Try they will, but even for college students they are the Gen Chem students and so as far as sciences go they are bottom barrel. They develop so many misconceptions it throws me for a loop how people can think like they do. I'll of course always happily correct them and show them how things work. While I'm too tired to list them I can let you ponder and maybe I'll fill you in later.
However, in the end I see nothing from them but wanting to escape responsibility and run from problems. I'm guilty of it too on occasion, but I've always seen this and I've always despised it. Even when I just started out in school. I'd get called a teacher's pet but I wouldn't even have to do that. I've always been the kid that felt like he didn't belong with the other kids. I could never think in the way they do. Not because I like to believe I'm smart, but something more along the lines of not wanting to simply be mediocre. Teachers notice things like that, I know I do. I have a teacher's pet in my lab. She's about ready to show me her breasts on command if I asked. Yet there are three kids who try their hardest and will always ask me questions. The lab, while always fun, gives me hope yet makes me face a stark reality of the ever present attitude of 'just doing enough'.
That's plenty for now. I'd like to keep talking about this. I've hung around these forums as a guest for a few months now. Never commented though. Tonight I was finally feeling it.
Now I get my monkeys!
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Words/phrases that come to mind are:
Angsty
Confused
Highest of highs, lowest of lows
Anything is possible
Identity confusion
Scary
Lost
30s are SOOOOO much better!
Angsty
Confused
Highest of highs, lowest of lows
Anything is possible
Identity confusion
Scary
Lost
30s are SOOOOO much better!