Advice | There From Here

Generation Y: Welcome Back Home?

August 22, 2011 By Chanelle Schneider 3 Comments

The following is a guest post by Cristin McGrath.

I’ve always been proud of my independence and ambition. I never thought I’d consider moving back home. My senior year of high school was the last time I lived with my parents for more than a few days. As of August I’m back for a return engagement.

Society has attached a nasty stigma to the notion of adult children living with their parents. After college it seemed most of my friends flew right back to their comfy, cheap nests when the job market was still poor, when their dream firms didn’t extend offers, when their chosen fields and expected salaries didn’t materialize. I, on the other, less frugal hand, took an internship that didn’t pay me nearly enough to afford my studio apartment in West Philadelphia (or life alone, in general). While I was technically living under the poverty line, I saw stars – literally and figuratively – during my stint as an intern with the Philadelphia Eagles. The brand recognition I earned from working with a professional sports team was too impressive to pass up.

After the internship’s honeymoon phase wore off, I realized student loans didn’t care about brand recognition and whether or not I saw literal or figurative stars. My loan obligations were steadily piling up while I earned less as a literal and figurative star-seeing intern than a Burger King cashier. Something didn’t add up. I decided enough was enough and began the stressful and disheartening task of finding a new job. The figurative stars later aligned perfectly as a contact I met via Twitter told me of an opening with an agency. I’d finally found a new job and a spot above the poverty line.

Three unpaid college internships and countless student loans did their damage, however. My new salary and benefits still don’t allow me to save money and continue with my lifestyle, already something less than extravagant. Asking my parents for help was the last thing I wanted to do, as my independence has always been important to me. Fortunately, they both recognized my struggle with poverty-ridden pride and offered the move home as a temporary solution (the “temporary” is my addition).

I have established a January 1, 2012 deadline to move out (again), to reestablish my independence. By then I will have a nest egg and be ready to kick myself out of my parents’ nest. A timeline for my departure is the only way I can mentally prepare myself for my return to the nest. I wanted to do it all on my own, and will, but us GenY’ers must know when our time in the wild has proven too dangerous to continue alone. The global economy is in distress. Debt – the country’s, our parents’, ours – is threatening our ability to take flight. So don’t be discouraged if the nest beckons. It’s warm and welcoming there.

The preceding was a guest post by Cristin McGrath.

Cristin McGrath is a creative and passionate communications specialist with experience across both traditional and emerging media. Her young but vibrant career has focused on building brand images for impressive organizations across the music, entertainment, technology, and sports industries — her expertise in the fields of social media and events management has enabled her to successfully aid in the operation of press departments with the Philadelphia Eagles, Sony Music Entertainment, MTV Networks and Dell. Most recently, she has transitioned into the world of agency PR with Vault Communications.

Cristin graduated in 2010 from Temple University with a BA in Strategic and Organizational Communication. She will be living (temporarily, of course) in the Poconos with her parents until January 2012.

Filed Under: Guest Posts, Stories Tagged With: generation Y, GenY, linkedin, living at home

What’s the ROI on that Degree Now?

July 25, 2011 By Chanelle Schneider 2 Comments

The following is a guest post by Liz Funk (bio below)

We’ve all felt buyer’s remorse. That lime green sundress that looked great in the fitting room looks putrid in the natural light. You decide to splurge on a dinner out, ordering an $18 entrée. When you finally eat it, it’s good, but not $18-good. You buy a bag of clearance clothes from the Gap, get home and deeply resent spending $60 on non-refundable clothes. It happens to everyone, every now and then, and you move on, because hopefully your buyer’s remorse isn’t on items worth more than a few hours’ pay.

But, what if you have buyer’s remorse for a major investment you made that will take years of income to pay off? And, without the resources to pay off such an investment, it seems like it was a terrible idea?

The “crap economy” and the devastating impact that the 2008 economic crash has had on young people has caused widespread unemployment among 20somethings. Because young people don’t have jobs, a) many young people don’t have the money to repay their student loans, and b) many young people are wondering why they went to college in the first place, if they’re unemployed!

While some “quarterlifers” miss college and want to go back to a simpler time, others are thoroughly resenting their college experience. Here’s how to reconcile this:

How to find value in your degree

1) First and foremost, be nice to yourself. Before 2006, there were relatively few people who had an idea that the economy was going to go so far downhill, and odds are good that you weren’t one of them. There’s nothing you can do to change the fact that you did go to college (i.e. a time machine), so be compassionate and nice to yourself and don’t beat yourself up.

2) Write down everything positive that you got out of college, whether it was a few really good friends who you still keep in touch with, some awesome memories (write each of them down!), or classes where you read some life-changing books.

3) Be critical of the system. There is definitely something messed up in that our society encourages entering college seniors to take out loans to go to the best college they were accepted to, but many take out a Range Rover’s worth of student loans, picking majors that will not help them pay off these loans. This isn’t to say that you should major in engineering if you aren’t interested in it. Rather, we should encourage students to consider alternate paths. Rather than rushing from high school straight into college, students should consider taking a gap year or two to work, travel, or intern so they have a stronger sense of what they might want to do professionally. Then, if they do take out student loans, they’ll be investing in an education that will help them pursue their passions, rather than going to college because that’s what you’re supposed to do, without much of an endpoint short of graduating. On that note, give yourself a break from job hunting, worrying, and stressing. This will ensure that you have some mental and emotional energy to brainstorm both where you want to go from here and how you can tap into what you learned in college to help you carve out a career!

But, overall, be nice to yourself because you can only move forward to a place that’s more positive if you’re really rooting and advocating for yourself!

Your turn! How do you come into your own when the first years of your adult life are marked by joblessness, instability, angst, and incessant money problems?

Coming of Age in a Crap Economy is the brainchild of Liz Funk, a New York-based freelance writer, author, and college lecturer. Liz has written for USA Today, Newsday, the Washington Post, New York magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, CosmoGIRL!, Girls’ Life, the Baltimore Sun, the New Jersey Record, the Albany Times Union, Lemondrop.com (AOL), and the New Humanist (UK). She is the author of Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Secret Crisis of Overachieving Girls, a non-fiction look at how today’s young women feel that they must be constantly improving themselves if they want to be loved. She regularly speaks at colleges about how young women can overcome perfectionism and about breaking into journalism/publishing, and she has been a guest lecturer at Columbia University, Cornell University, Duke University, New York University, Boston University, Emerson College, Rice University, Whitman College, the University of Iowa, the University of Missouri, Mississippi State University, the University of South Florida, and Penn State University, among many other colleges.

She graduated from college in 2009 with high honors in English literature and has yet to be extended a single full-time job offer. She lives in upstate New York with her collie, Buddy (who she’s pretty sure has figured out the meaning of life), and her parents, of course.

Filed Under: Gen-Y Goal Stars, Guest Posts Tagged With: career, generation Y, get there from here, linkedin, living at home

A New Soviet Model for American Education Part III

July 15, 2011 By Chanelle Schneider 1 Comment

The following is a guest post by Benjamin Daniel of WriteRight Publications. Benjamin is really big on education research, measurable metrics, improved education outcomes and education reform. He has successfully lobbied for increased funding for early childhood education funding, done field work and led teams as a community organizer. Benjamin also led nonprofit and community development initiatives in underserved communities.

This post is continued from A New Soviet Model for American Education Part I

Motivation

These three groups suffer from what I’ll call a lack of collective communication and advancement. They have different, though related, reasons for wanting success (we assume they all want success) but none seem to have anything to do with one another. Does it make a difference if they want the same thing for related reasons, you ask? Why yes, it does!

Say a teacher wants to earn more money by helping her students produce better results as measured by their performance in the classroom and test scores. Students need to understand how it helps them to perform well. Scholarships to colleges for good classroom performance or paid training for careers that don’t require a college degree are strong incentives for success. Teachers and students now have a shared financial incentive to perform well.

Parents who aren’t certain about why they should motivate kids to excel or who don’t care whether a teacher buys a bigger house also need incentives. Circumstances will dictate the kinds of rewards they receive but low-income families, for example, might receive vouchers to local grocery stores to purchase food (in addition to whatever aid they might already receive). Schools can form partnerships with area businesses to help promote improving education for students and teachers and, by extension, the lives of everyone involved. It’s also a great opportunity to promote the idea of community-based education, where everyone involved has an incentive to ensure the other does well.

I Know How We Can Change

Ultimately, people will probably act in their own self-interest. The trick is to make their self-interest behave in such a way that it promotes and supports the other people’s self-interest. Here’s how:

Parents: get your kid to school on time, attend your parent-teacher conferences and come to an assembly when you’re asked. You can earn yourself perks and rewards at local businesses.

Students: work with your parents and teachers to do well in school, respect authority and earn money for college or vocational education.

Teachers: get involved in your school’s neighborhood, learn something about your kids’ parents and families, work with them to improve classroom performance and maybe earn the kind of bonus that could mean a remodeled kitchen, a longer vacation or a new house entirely.

Collectively working to advance the other’s agendas, then, is a great idea for everyone involved and can dramatically improve per-student performance, teacher success and parental involvement.

Your turn: What do you think of this proposed solution? Can it work? What can work?

Filed Under: Advice, Guest Posts Tagged With: motivation, service, smcedu

A New Soviet Model for American Education Part II

July 14, 2011 By Chanelle Schneider Leave a Comment

This post is continued from A New Soviet Model for American Education Part I

So, what does work? How do we fix our middling American education system? I’ve often wondered if we haven’t given the Soviet Communist collectivist model a bad rap. If you’re aware of the “it takes a village to raise a child” saying, you know where I’m headed with this.

We (Don’t) Live Together

One of the biggest and most difficult problems we need to overcome in education is that often each of the actors involved (teachers, students, parents) brings different agendas to the classroom. Teachers have a curriculum they have to follow; the state and school requires that a lesson be taught in a specific time frame. These lessons help teachers prepare students for both the next grade level, long-term, and mandatory testing, near-term. These tests, if students perform well on them, help schools earn congratulations from other educators, parents (hopefully) and legislators which, in turn, could mean more money or, perhaps, a successful bond issue for another school in the district or improvements to existing schools.

Some districts are paying teachers more money if students perform at a certain level both in the classroom and on standardized tests. There’s a financial incentive to get as many students as possible doing well enough to not only pass classroom and standardized tests, but to pass them at a certain level. These bonuses can help teachers pay their bills, buy a bigger house, improve their existing homes, buy another car or take vacations. Of course they want to do well.

But wait, you say. What about students and their parents? Students are getting a couple different kinds of lessons in school: intellectual, or thinking, lessons (we’ll call them practical since they’re supposed to put kids on the road to college and a college degree which, in turn, is supposed to help them earn more money over the course of their lives than they would without it) and moral, or personal, lessons. Codes of conduct, rewards and punishments for good and bad behavior and for good and bad classroom performance are designed to teach personal lessons. Students, then, depending on the school and its reward/punishment structure, have an incentive to do well and behave. Their reasons, however, are not the same as or even in line with those of teachers.

Finally we have parents. It’s easy to say, “That kid’s mom and dad obviously don’t spend enough time with him/her. See how poorly he/she does in school? Look how disrespectful toward other students and teachers he/she is!” This, of course, both oversimplifies and reduces a parent’s role in a child’s education. Some parents send kids to school to learn, to have opportunities for better jobs and to stay out of trouble. Other parents don’t care how their kids perform and just want them away from the house for the time they’re in school. Parents, then, don’t have the same motives for helping their kids be successful students as the kids or the teachers.

To read what will motivate us to change, please come back for Part III to be published later this week. Until then, please leave your comments below.

Filed Under: Advice, Guest Posts Tagged With: family, motivation, service, smcedu

A New Soviet Model for American Education Part I

July 13, 2011 By Chanelle Schneider 2 Comments

In a quiet suburb of a large, major American city, on streets with loud, laughing, child-filled environmentally friendly parks and whose homes feature two-car garages, whose two-parent, racially-diverse, middle-class, college-educated mothers and fathers make sure to recycle paper and plastic and use energy-friendly lights for lamps, who water well-maintained, landscaped lawns during off hours to help conserve water and who have between two and four well-read and attentive children, there is daily, violent fighting. The fighting is political and, therefore, personal. The fighting is over the present and the future of American public education. But I’ve skipped a step or two.

By 1918 every state in America had passed laws requiring children to receive an education. America was changing from a country where most people were farmers and worked schedules tied to planting and harvesting crops to a country where most of the people worked in factories and were moving to heavily-populated cities on its coasts. Education was becoming increasingly important in these cities.

Unfortunately, the education laws put in place in 1918 set varying, inefficient guidelines. The new laws did not specify what kind of education children should receive, what was important to learn, why it was important to learn it, and, depending on the state, set different limits on how long children had to attend school and how old they had to be upon starting and finishing. Until the United States Department of Education was formed in 1980, states set their own rules that involved a lot of guesswork and were based on different kinds of research with no unifying ideas about effective policy. America still lacks a clear and effective national education policy and hasn’t agreed on a national curriculum. Many of the countries now found ahead of us in world rankings have instituted universal education standards and policies and done well as a result, improving education outcomes for students across socioeconomic and racial strata.

Still, for a long time we managed as the stick stirring the global education and innovation pot. America was ranked at or near the top of so-called “first world” countries for education. Now, however, America ranks as “average” according to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). On a 1,000-point scale, America rates around 500 in reading, math and science. OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), meanwhile, says that, of the 34 countries studied, American 15 year-olds rank 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math, in the middle or near bottom.

The Purpose of an Education

We’re fighting over American education because we can’t agree on what an American education is. We’re fighting over American education because too often a quality education depends on how much money a family earns and where that family is allowed to live. We have a mismatched group of education policies that are different for each state and, in fact, are different within states. I was raised in a state, New Jersey, where the quality of education varied wildly within a 10 square-mile radius. Politicians and educators are proposing solutions from vouchers to small classes to paying children to get good grades. None of these work consistently, if at all.

To see what solutions will be offered, please come back for Parts II and III to be published later this week. Until then, please leave your comments below.

Filed Under: Advice, Guest Posts Tagged With: motivation, parents

Generation Y Change-Maker: Zim Ugochukwu

January 16, 2011 By Chanelle Schneider Leave a Comment

How Did We Meet?

Zim Ugochukwu first moved onto my radar in the summer of 2009 when I mentioned that I would be attending the Campus Progress National Student Conference (CPNC) on Twitter. Almost immediately I received a tweet from @IgniteGSO saying they would be there, too, and that I should check out their project. Usually I don’t click on anyone’s link just because they send it to me, but I made an exception. As someone who worked on her college campus to battle against apathy and increase student involvement, I was impressed by the mission and, later, inspired by Zim when she received an award for her work on stage at the CPNC.

I’m grateful that Zim was paying attention to updates about the conference because I have been able to see her consistent growth for close to two years. If anyone deserves to be on a “Ones to Watch” list, it’s her. In a world full of people seeking change and innovation for selfish reasons it is refreshing to see someone so committed to selfless progress.

What follows is an interview I conducted of her, gaining insight into her multiple projects and how she is getting there from here.

What is helloChange?
helloChange is the largest youth run National Anti-tobacco activism program. It was called the Electrified Youth Project at first. Our mission is to fight back against Big Tobacco. We recently won a $250,000 PepsiRefresh grant and we’ll be going on a 20-30 city tour this summer in addition to hosting a conference in Louisiana.

What is your role in helloChange?
I am Vice President of Activism.

How did you find out about helloChange?
Chad Bullock, the founder, and I went to middle school together. We lost touch but met again when I was interning in Washington, DC. He has always been involved in teaching young people. He approached me about this project, and that’s how I became involved. Chad used to be on the youth advisory board of Truth and is the first non-celebrity to win a Teen Choice Award. He just turned 22. He uses his age to his advantage and the oldest person involved in helloChange is 25.

What is Ignite Greensboro?
The first mission of Ignite Greensboro was to raise awareness for the Civil Rights Museum. When I didn’t receive the support I was looking for, I decided to move on with the project on my own and within the same year was getting recognized by the same people who said it wouldn’t work.

Ignite Greensboro is a project based on mobilizing the students from the colleges and universities in Greensboro to engage in the community through ongoing social action and comprehensive programs. Our mission is to provide a medium for college students to become effective catalysts for change and competent representatives of progress in our society.

The purpose of There From Here is to inspire people with stories and advice from those who are achieving their goals by showing how they are getting where they’re meant to be. Do you have any advice to share for people who may be struggling with following through on their ideas or staying motivated?
Not every idea is going to work. Some ideas may be so ambitious. We have the ability to make our own decisions. If someone’s telling me no, then we’ll find another way around it.

Never ask permission to start a revolution. Our ancestors had the same fear during the Civil Rights Movement. We have to learn to move past the fear. My conscience never says you can’t do this. What do you have to lose? What are you waiting for? [People who are afraid] wait like they’re waiting for something to happen. You just have to do it.

Growing up I always knew I would be a doctor. My whole family was ok with that decision. My mom was not comfortable when I started to go on a different track. She would say, “Get a job because it pays good.” Now, her mentality has shifted and she sees what I’m doing. She did always tell me that if I don’t like something, I need to fix it, so my tenacity comes from that.

I’m thankful for grants and scholarships that paid for school. I doubt I would have been able to do any of this had I had to work 40 hours a week. I don’t get paid for my work with Ignite Greensboro. When I graduate, I might be working overseas.

Where do you begin searching for grants?
No website in particular but type in what you’re looking for into Google or even the local library section on non-profits. The grant we’re applying for now I found by just Googling. There are so many grants a lot of people aren’t applying to.

Where does your courage come from and how did you find good people to help?
If you’re willing to take the setbacks that come to you, stay involved. The only thing you’re losing is the status quo. Somebody across the world is going to come up with the same idea. You have to decide if you’re going to be the person to provide what the world needs. There is beauty in collaboration. Find someone who specializes in what you’re not specialized in. Work with committed peers who are not just excited. Excitement fades. They have to be passionate. Your conscience is there for a reason. It may be a fault of mine, but I always listen to my conscience and my conscience never says don’t do it.

How do you maintain a work/life balance?
This is a tough question because sometimes I don’t even know. I’m trying to get better at balance. I find motivation in the smallest things. I’m more motivated by the final picture. I think that I’m more of a facilitator. I know that my motivation comes from that. Sometimes the work becomes stressful. Living by myself helps because I don’t have to deal with people in my space. I don’t think that I’m 100 precent balanced, but I have a lot of energy.

Where can we find more information about your projects?
Go to ignitegreensboro.org and hellochange.org or follow us on Twitter at @IgniteGSO and @hellochange.

Filed Under: Advice, Gen-Y Goal Stars Tagged With: generation Y, genychat

Addicted to Failure. How Can We Change Our Narrative?

January 13, 2011 By Chanelle Schneider 4 Comments

When was the first time you finally got something you wanted? After days, months, or years of trying to understand something, make it work, or get what you feel you’ve been working towards, you actually got it? Were you petrified? Waiting for the oft stated “other shoe to drop”?

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I often tie in clips from movies or television. I still can’t answer the question of whether art imitates life or life imitates art, but it is interesting when film or television reminds us of life experiences. It is what makes us to relate to them and connect to them.

Of course I’m reminded of a scene from both a television show and a movie this time.

In this scene from Sex and the City Charlotte is finally with a man in a loving relationship after, as she states in a previous episode, searching for one since she was 15. She was told previously that she had almost no chance of becoming pregnant. Then, she receives a call from her doctor and finds out that she is.

Later, in the Sex and the City movie, Charlotte finds out that she is pregnant again and is scared to do anything that might threaten the pregnancy. She becomes less like herself. She stops running.

In television and film we root for the underdog because we long for success in our own lives. We want to see people leap beyond their past obstacles and onto the other side of the wall. We love it even more if they help people along the way. In the case of Ted Williams, the man with the golden voice, the public has latched onto him for his story of recovery. On the Today Show, he was asked if he would be able to handle this sudden success. In the short time that he’s seen his dreams come true, Williams found himself reverting to old behavior. Reports say he has entered rehab to adjust to the new life he wants to lead, but commentary from guests on this morning’s Today Show gave me pause.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

At 5:50 in, the discussion turns to an analysis of what happens when success comes to someone who has known only failure for so long, and the following was said:

Addicts relapse when things are going well for them, afraid of failing or being found out a fraud, not comfortable with success, comfortable with chaos and things falling apart. Success can trigger a relapse.

So, I ask myself and you all reading this, what do you do when life finally hands you what you say you’ve been wanting? How do you become emotionally ready to accept that success you’ve seen others accept with ease? How do you stop yourself from thinking it won’t last? For someone whose narrative has become I can’t, I won’t, and I don’t, when does the expectation of a different narrative come? When does “Yes, I can” become an internalized belief?

Filed Under: Advice Tagged With: get there from here

Enough Already: Controlling My Own Clutter

January 11, 2011 By Chanelle Schneider Leave a Comment

Taking time for myself makes me feel like I’m being lazy.

With so many GenY critics blasting my generation for being lazy, it’s a label I strive to avoid.

A couple months ago I started asking friends to hold onto their cardboard boxes. I intended to use these boxes to finally organize my room. I still haven’t done it.

I have clutter. Worse, I have memory clutter. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Advice Tagged With: get there from here, OWN

Alone for the Holidays

December 24, 2010 By Chanelle Schneider Leave a Comment

Next year will be different. This year I’m alone. It’s not much of a Christmas for me this year – sorry to say. I will keep my traditions, though. Miracle on 34th Street and It’s a Wonderful Life will be watched repeatedly. Christmas was never much about the material aspect for me anyway.