Post by drewlane on Aug 8, 2011 22:52:55 GMT -5
This article really piqued my interest because it is true. Completely true and without a doubt right. Students today are just too organized and rushed for their own good. We see in the article, that kids at the elite colleges in America "shave every day, and their hair is freshly shampooed." To me, that's just too clean for any college student to be.
From there arises the question, "How did my generation get so accepting of authority and restriction, that even the college kids are bathing every day?" I think it's because of the following quote from the article "The Organization Kid" by David Brooks " They have relatively little generational consciousness. That's because this generation is for the most part not fighting to emancipate itself from the past. The most sophisticated people in preceding generations were formed by their struggle to break free from something. The most sophisticated people in this one aren't." The quote is basically the foundation of the rest of my response to this article. My generation just simply doesn't have anything to "break free" from. The kids of the 60's and 70's had a war and authority to break free from. My generation just has a war on terror that is more of a police action across the Atlantic. It's been going on so long, sometimes I forget that we are even in a war. We have nothing to protest because our parents haven't given us permission to go protest. Ergo, our parents don't want us to be wild like them, so we've had scheduled playtime since we came from the womb. We've been taught that rules are rules and "because I said so" is a valid reason for someone with authority to do something. As the Princeton professor said in the article, "I have a hard time getting them to call me by my first name, and they never take the opposite position of what the professor is saying." From the time we were toddlers, we have been taught that anyone who is 3 years older than you or more is to be addressed as "Mr. or Mrs. So-And-So" no wonder the professors are having a hard time talking to their students.
I know that my parents weren't sheltered at all from anything going on in the world, but with me, even a conversation on the country's political endeavors os hushed and carefully edited so that my political beliefs mimic that of my parents. The same is true with religion and really anything any human being could ever have an opinion on. The real truth is, my parents were like the flowers in the yard of a lady who really didn't get out much. They were left to do as they pleased, as long as it wasn't extremely illegal. My generation is like a flower in perfect suburbia. We are watered on a schedule, pruned daily, and we always must look our best. No weeds are accepted, and the smallest blemish is means for being thrown out. We simply just haven't been parented the way we should have been. What do you think will happen when we are released inot the big, scary world? We turn into Princeton students.
My father received a 27 on his ACT. With his 27 he received a full ride to MIT (which he sadly turned down because of the distance) and was accepted to several other prestigious schools, including Princeton. I have a 30 on my ACT, and I don't even qualify for a full ride to the University of Kentucky without a 31 on my ACT. Meanwhile, the ACT average acceptance score at Princeton has risen from a 25 to a 34 since 1982. This shows our parents didn't have to work as hard or be nearly as scholarly when it comes to college. As Mr. Brooks stated in the article "...we'd sit around the table shooting the breeze for several hours." while current students have to start scheduling in time to take a breath.
The article is right, we are too organized for our own good, and it's not very healthy. We don't have time for relationships. And most of all, we're teaching ourselves to make ourselves miserable in everything we do. We'd better watch out, or pretty soon we'll run out of time to schedule.
From there arises the question, "How did my generation get so accepting of authority and restriction, that even the college kids are bathing every day?" I think it's because of the following quote from the article "The Organization Kid" by David Brooks " They have relatively little generational consciousness. That's because this generation is for the most part not fighting to emancipate itself from the past. The most sophisticated people in preceding generations were formed by their struggle to break free from something. The most sophisticated people in this one aren't." The quote is basically the foundation of the rest of my response to this article. My generation just simply doesn't have anything to "break free" from. The kids of the 60's and 70's had a war and authority to break free from. My generation just has a war on terror that is more of a police action across the Atlantic. It's been going on so long, sometimes I forget that we are even in a war. We have nothing to protest because our parents haven't given us permission to go protest. Ergo, our parents don't want us to be wild like them, so we've had scheduled playtime since we came from the womb. We've been taught that rules are rules and "because I said so" is a valid reason for someone with authority to do something. As the Princeton professor said in the article, "I have a hard time getting them to call me by my first name, and they never take the opposite position of what the professor is saying." From the time we were toddlers, we have been taught that anyone who is 3 years older than you or more is to be addressed as "Mr. or Mrs. So-And-So" no wonder the professors are having a hard time talking to their students.
I know that my parents weren't sheltered at all from anything going on in the world, but with me, even a conversation on the country's political endeavors os hushed and carefully edited so that my political beliefs mimic that of my parents. The same is true with religion and really anything any human being could ever have an opinion on. The real truth is, my parents were like the flowers in the yard of a lady who really didn't get out much. They were left to do as they pleased, as long as it wasn't extremely illegal. My generation is like a flower in perfect suburbia. We are watered on a schedule, pruned daily, and we always must look our best. No weeds are accepted, and the smallest blemish is means for being thrown out. We simply just haven't been parented the way we should have been. What do you think will happen when we are released inot the big, scary world? We turn into Princeton students.
My father received a 27 on his ACT. With his 27 he received a full ride to MIT (which he sadly turned down because of the distance) and was accepted to several other prestigious schools, including Princeton. I have a 30 on my ACT, and I don't even qualify for a full ride to the University of Kentucky without a 31 on my ACT. Meanwhile, the ACT average acceptance score at Princeton has risen from a 25 to a 34 since 1982. This shows our parents didn't have to work as hard or be nearly as scholarly when it comes to college. As Mr. Brooks stated in the article "...we'd sit around the table shooting the breeze for several hours." while current students have to start scheduling in time to take a breath.
The article is right, we are too organized for our own good, and it's not very healthy. We don't have time for relationships. And most of all, we're teaching ourselves to make ourselves miserable in everything we do. We'd better watch out, or pretty soon we'll run out of time to schedule.