Picture this:
As you sit on the couch, watching daytime television and eating cereal, you begin to wonder how this all happened and if this is how you’re going to spend the rest of your life.
To make matters worse, your mother comes in screaming, telling to you to finish the dishes, as you think to yourself that you have to get out of there.
No, this is not some child in high school wanting to move out. This is a picture of an unemployed college graduate.
This is a sad reality many college students are facing after graduation.
In an article published in December of last year, the Huffington Post, said the youth unemployment rate is higher than the national average. To make things worse, many of the people who are employed are doing low-wage jobs such as being a waiter or waitress. Many people are beginning to wonder if college is even worth it.
There was a time when education was not a big deal, since only a few went to college. However, times have changed.
Many people are going to college, hoping that it will pay off in the future and that they can get a high-paying job. More people are going to college and getting degrees, meaning that there is extra competition in the post-college job market.
However, not only are we competing against students from other schools in our own country, we are now competing against people from all over the world.
While some people complain about this, there really is not much we can do.
We can’t control the economy.
Big corporations outsource jobs. It happens. However, we can change our behavioral patterns and embrace the competition.
There is a common misconception that millennials are spoiled kids who feel as if they are entitled to everything, including a job. Is it true?
There are articles stating that our generation has a terrible work ethic, lacks passion and has poor problem-solving abilities, among other things. This should not offend anybody, because partially it’s true.
We must break the stereotype.
Those doing the hiring are looking for the best as the market gets ever more competitive. It is our job to break the millennial norm and work harder than everyone else. We are not entitled to anything.
It can be frustrating hearing that, because some of us do work hard, staying up endless nights studying, making sure we get that A on an exam or project.
However, education should be more than just a grade. Having a good GPA is great, but what you learn and what you can do is what matters in the work force. We need to stand out and tell the hiring managers that our generation does work hard, and that an entire generation can’t be characterized by a certain few.
Better yet, we need to show them, because words don’t mean much if you don’t follow through with actions.
While we do need to embrace the competition, many jobs out there are lower-wage jobs because companies know if we don’t take them, people in other countries will.
This is what is bothersome because tuition is rising and the number of loans students take out is skyrocketing. College tuition is rising faster than the inflation rate, which causes some concern. So while people think we feel “entitled,” it is a reality that we do need jobs with decent wages to pay off our loans and to live comfortably after graduation.
While our generation has a bad reputation, companies and hiring managers need to realize that not every millennial is the same. Some do work hard and have a passion for learning.
We are living in a world filled with information and technology, and millennials know how to dissect that information and how to do it quickly. This could be an advantage because we already know how to function in a fast-paced environment.
We don’t need to be coddled.
We don’t’ need to be held.
We need to go out there and compete.
We can’t let the criticism hurt us and we must not be sensitive. We should only be using that to make ourselves better. Winning will not only give us the ultimate prize, a job, but it will make us feel better about the millennial stereotype, knowing we achieved something on our own and grew up.
Parmida is a junior journalism major from Wurzburg, Germany. She is a sports writer for the Baylor Lariat.
