The Millennial Conflict

What are your plans? Where will you live? Are you two staying together? Have you heard back for interviews yet?

These burdening, nosy, yet expected questions have become all too familiar to me, and surely to everyone else my age, as well. At 22 years old and with only eight weeks until graduation the pressure rises with every quarter-life crisis I have.

No, I don’t know what my plans are. I don’t know where I’ll be living. And no, I haven’t heard back for any interviews yet because I haven’t even started applying for jobs.

Deep down, I know that there are a ton of people my age who are feeling the exact same way—anxious, unsure, and simply just scared for what’s to come. However, we don’t hear as much from these people as we do from those who seem to have it all figured out. Perhaps this is because our generation seems to be excessively competitive and we all only want to share our successes—because god forbid we admit we’ve only have one internship and don’t have a job lined up to begin right after graduation. But maybe this isn’t just our nature as millennials. I think we’re all just beyond confused because we have been sent contradicting messages about this time in our lives for as long as we can remember. At least I’m sure I have.

Though they have our best interest at heart, a lot of these mixed messages come from our parents. One day it’s,” Don’t worry, you’re not the only one who doesn’t know exactly what they want to do. You have time to figure that out.” But the next it’s, “You need to start getting in touch with companies and following up with them until you get offered a position.” I mean I get it—I should probably be searching a little bit more than I have been, but yesterday you told me not to worry because everything is going to fall into place eventually. So, I guess I’m not doing what I should be?

Well, regardless of what I (and maybe you) have and have not done to prepare for life after college, it is a little bit comforting that in 2015 only 14% of college seniors had jobs lined up prior to graduation. Then again, it’s a bit concerning. Although our country’s unemployment rates have gone down in the past year, our generation alone still makes up 40% of the unemployed and this certainly does not help the bad reputation that so many people have placed upon us millennials. But again, I don’t think this is necessarily our fault. In fact, according to the study “Stress in America,” which was conducted by the American Psychological Association, millennials have grown to become the most currently stressed generation. As a young generation under this stress, we have done some pretty impactful and influential things that we do get momentarily applauded for—until the rest of the world feels like hating on us again. For everyone to look past the great things some have us have done in order to shame us for what we have not done is as unfair and judgmental as it is disheartening. So don’t worry if you don’t have a secure plan because as it goes with our generation, we’ll be damned if we do and we’ll be damned if we don’t.

Kristen Brennand