{"id":52779,"date":"2013-05-20T12:00:18","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T17:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=52779"},"modified":"2013-10-31T04:12:32","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T09:12:32","slug":"college-students-aspirations-and-expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/05\/20\/college-students-aspirations-and-expectations\/","title":{"rendered":"Two-Thirds of College Students Think They’re Going to Change the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at PolicyMic<\/a>, Huffington Post<\/a>, BlogHer<\/a>, and Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Writer\u00a0Peg Streep<\/a>\u00a0is writing a book about the Millennial generation and she routinely sprinkles great data into her posts at\u00a0Psychology Today<\/a>. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Recently she linked to at study by Net Impact<\/a> that surveyed currently-enrolled college students and college-graduates across three generations Millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers. \u00a0The questions focused on life goals and work priorities. \u00a0They found significant differences between students and college grads, as well as interesting generational differences.<\/p>\n

First, students have generally higher demands on the world; they are as likely or more likely than workers to say that a wide range of accomplishments are “important or essential to [their] happiness”:<\/p>\n

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In particular, students are more likely than workers to say it is important or essential to have a prestigious career with which they can make an impact. \u00a0More than a third think that this will happen within the next five years<\/em>:<\/p>\n

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Wealth is less important to students than prestige and impact. \u00a0Over a third say they would take a significant pay cut to work for a company committed to corporate social responsibility (CSR), almost half for a company that makes a positive social or environmental impact, and over half to align their values with their job:<\/p>\n

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Students stand out, then, in both the desire to be personally successful and to make a positive contribution to society.<\/p>\n

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At the same time, they’re cynical about other people’s priorities. \u00a0Students and Millennials are far more likely than Gen Xers or Boomers to think that “people are just looking out for themselves.”<\/p>\n

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This data rings true to this college professor. \u00a0Despite the recession, the students at my (rather elite, private, liberal arts) school surprise me with their high professional expectations (thinking that they should<\/em> be wildly successful, even if they’re worried they won’t be) and their desire to change the world (many strongly identify as progressives who are concerned with social inequalities and political corruption).<\/p>\n

Some call this entitlement, but I think it’s at least as true to say that today’s college youth (the self-esteem generation) have been promised these things. \u00a0They’ve always been told to dream big, and so they do. \u00a0Unfortunately, I’m afraid that we’ve sold our young people a bill of goods. \u00a0Their high expectations sound like a\u00a0recipe for disappointment, even for my privileged population, especially if they expect it to happen before they exit their twenties!<\/p>\n

Alternatively, what we’re seeing is the idealism of youth. \u00a0It will be interesting to see if they downshift their expectations once they get into the workforce. \u00a0Net Impact doesn’t address whether these are largely generational or age differences. \u00a0It’s probably a combination of both.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at PolicyMic, Huffington Post, BlogHer, and Pacific Standard. Writer\u00a0Peg Streep\u00a0is writing a book about the Millennial generation and she routinely sprinkles great data into her posts at\u00a0Psychology Today. \u00a0 Recently she linked to at study by Net Impact that surveyed currently-enrolled college students and college-graduates across three generations Millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[209,349,223,29,15,272,693,76],"class_list":["post-52779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-academia","tag-ageaging","tag-childrenyouth","tag-class","tag-culture","tag-marriagefamily","tag-public-opinion","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52779"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58017,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52779\/revisions\/58017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}