First-Generation Collegians: Their Families’ Hope
Dec 13th
Of his six brothers and sisters, Mike Rodriguez,* a Fordham University senior, is the only child in his family who will graduate from college.
The words his mother told him before he began his freshman year are seared in his mind: “You are my only hope,” she said as he pushed a half-filled grocery cart back to their apartment in Washington Heights. He stared at her blankly: never before was it so clear that his future or his family’s future rested on him going to college.
“I’m carrying the family’s banner,” he said. “It’s my job to increase our status, so my mother can have the life she dreams of and my kids can have more than I do.”
While his parents came to America from the Dominican Republic for factory work to fulfill the “American Dream,” Rodriguez carries the responsibility to take the dream one step further by using college to establish his family as well educated and financially successful.
Will Gen. Y Rock the Vote?
Dec 13th
The streets were overflowing as a brisk November air rushed through New York City. Car horns blared, music boomed and all around eager 20-somethings, many sitting on each other’s shoulders, cheered wildly: a veritably frenzy perhaps only matched in intensity by the sheer chaos that is New Year’s Eve. But the thousands huddled in Times Square that night, basking in the glow of neon lights and flash bulbs, were not there to ring in the New Year. Rather, it was election night.
In 2008, then Senator Barack Obama was propelled into the White House largely on the backs of young voters. Sold on the idea of change they could believe in, Generation Y voted in record numbers and dispelled the notion that it was apathetic when it came to politics.
But now just four short years later, with the unemployment rate dauntingly high, this generation’s youthful enthusiasm has come face to face with a bleak reality. While in 2008, it seemed that Obama held a monopoly over this generation’s votes, that may no longer be the case. Millennials are still a highly sought commodity but now considered a more available one, with candidates on both sides of the political spectrum vying for their attention. So the question becomes: What role will Generation Y will play in this election cycle? Read the rest of this entry »
The D.I.Y. Retirment Generation
Dec 13th
As a financial behavior psychologist for Gen Y, business has never been better for Matt Wallaert.
What started out in college as giving casual advice to friends on saving and spending behaviors turned into a full-time career for Wallaert. The millennial entrepreneur has already founded several Gen Y finance advice websites including getraised.com, a “go get em’” promotion advisement service for underpaid workers.
But despite all the advice the PhD candidate dolled out in college and on his websites, there is still one area of Gen Y finances that still has Wallaert and fellow millenials on their heels: saving for retirement. Read the rest of this entry »
Nostalgia Hits the 90s Babies
(One More Time)
Dec 13th
For a generation that’s barely lived a quarter of their lives, millennials seem prematurely nostalgic for their youth. But thanks to the Internet and modern media, icons of yesterday are in the palms of Generation Y hands.
Youngsters of the 1990s had it easy. Days were spent delighting in Nickelodeon’s “Doug,” snacking on Fruit-By-The Foot, collecting Beanie Babies and crooning along to the latest tune by The Backstreet Boys. For many 90s kids, the biggest struggles adolescence presented were choosing which Goosebumps book to read next, parenting those pesky Tamagotchis, and deciding if Sugar Ray was, in fact, a better band than Matchbox 20. Flash-forward to the present day and those same 90s kids, now college aged or recently graduated, are still infatuated with their icons of yore.
Cause Marketing: Reaching the Unmarketables
Dec 13th
In a Youtube video, Melissa Savage, events manager at a Los Angela anti-gang non profit, activates a voice-controlled GPS navigation system and queries the location of Homegirl Café. As she drives her Ford Focus to the café, Savage explains how the restaurant, by employing at-risk youth, fulfills their mission statement: “Jobs not Jails.”
The video is part of “The People’s Fleet,” a campaign in which Ford provides cars and camera crews to various charitable organizations in Los Angeles. The nonprofits then upload videos of their employees working–not so coincidently in the Ford autos. For example, though the shot of Savage using the Focus’ GPS system seems innocuous, its inclusion is hardly accidental.
Fundamentally, the video is a car ad, but it won’t run on TV and it never explicitly discusses the car, its make or model, its features or price. The people the Ford marketers hope to reach don’t watch TV and aren’t just concerneed with the car’s features.
From Dating to Hooking Up: What it Means for Gen Y
Nov 22nd
When people asked Sara A., how long she and her then-boyfriend Nick had been dating, her answer varied. To her friends, the now 20-year-old NYU student had no problem explaining several years of “hooking up” and her “open relationship.” To her grandma and other relatives, Sara counted only the months when she and Nick were a monogamous, exclusive couple.
“Even after my parents knew about Nick, it was hard to answer their questions about our status and to keep them updated on how our relationship evolved,” said Sara, noting that their relationship covered a three year span. “They didn’t understand the grey areas in the complex dating world.”
In the present-day dating landscape for Generation Y, being involved with someone can’t simply be labeled “dating” as it was for older generations, when romantic rituals followed distinctly defined patterns. Today, with few universally agreed upon labels and rules, it is hard to know what to call these dating stages, or if stages even exist at all. Read the rest of this entry »
Does Facebook Really Make Narcissists?
Nov 22nd
In “The Social Network,” Mark Zuckerberg’s fictional girlfriend breaks up with him after he refuses to stop talking about himself at dinner. Miffed, Zuckerberg hastily retreats to his Harvard dorm, opens a beer, and posts about his latest personal problem on the Internet for everyone to see.
This opening scene of “The Social Network” the story of Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site, i typifies a common attitude about such websites : outlets built for and by self-interested, whining Millennials.
Due largely to the writings of Jean Twenge, author “The Narcissism Epidemic” and “Generation Me,” the symbiotic relationship between rising rates of narcissistic behavior in Generation Y and sites like Facebook has been widely accepted.
Footing the Bill- College Loan Debt Fuels OWS
Nov 22nd
When Robert Dorman first enrolled in Rutgers University, he didn’t expect that ten years later he would still be paying back his student loans.
Pacing the sidewalks of Zuccotti Park as part of the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protests, Dorman, 28, has one demand scrawled on his simple cardboard sign: “dissolve all student debt.”
“People are always saying we don’t have a single demand, well here it is,” said Dorman, who failed to find a job after receiving his environmental engineering major from Rutgers and works instead as a Fedex delivery man to help pay back $30,000 in student loans. “The system is structured so that you enter the workforce already a slave to debt.”
With record tuitions and a fluctuating economy, the risk of investing thousands of dollars into a college education for a guaranteed payoff is greater than ever. Read the rest of this entry »
Can a Relationship Survive Facebook?
Nov 22nd
http://www.shinyshiny.tv/2011/02/the_facebook_break_up_notifier.html
Too much information killed college student Katie Ulrich’s relationship. The NYU junior began to suspect her romance was on rocky ground when she and the new flame were not exactly simpatico: She dressed up for dates while he sported sweats; they’d make plans for a day’s outing to Coney Island and he changed his mind just before boarding the train.
Ulrich was willing to let the faux pas slip until an indie concert they planned to attend together. “He called to say he was not feeling well enough to go,” Ulrich said. “I decided not to go either, even though I already bought my ticket.”
That night when Ulrich checked her Facebook newsfeed, she saw her “sick” date’s status: He was going to the concert with a number of tagged friends. After that, “I was done seeing him,” Ulrich said.
Many people have experienced Facebook postings have ending a blossoming relationship. Through the constant status updates, location check-ins, and photo postings, Facebook puts a relationship in hyper speed.
With Facebook, the need for introductory conversations is eliminated. One can find all the information they need simply by friending a person and viewing the profile. A profile is a goldmine listing the entire history of a person’s life through pictures, postings, and status updates. The information overload creates problems for dating — no longer do people learn about each other through interpersonal relations, all it takes is some snooping on their Facebook profile. Read the rest of this entry »
Gen Y Goes Vegan
Oct 25th
Vegan dish from the Wild Ginger restaurant
Lucy Drummond became a vegan just before her freshman year at NYU after seeing a documentary on animals suffering on factory farms. Growing up, she and her family regularly ate meat, but since going vegan, she has become an officer of Cruelty-Free NYU, a student-run animal rights club, and has saved approximately 60 animals per year – just by not eating them.
Drummond’s experience is shared by other millennials, who are making the change after watching documentaries on animal cruelty, reading about the vegan lifestyle, or trying to improve their health.
Read the rest of this entry »