Gen Next Will Rock the New Normal?

Millennials were born with the internet. They’ve probably never used card catalogs, Walkmans or typewriters. And unlike older workers, they don’t believe in job security.

In a nice counterpoint to a recent Atlantic Monthly story that argued GenY will be permanently handicapped by the recession, Nancy Cook, writing for Newsweek, wonders whether younger people are actually very nicely suited to the New Normal of jobs…

Graduation to Nowhere

I’ve spent no small amount of time thinking about how my life could have been different if I had graduated in another year.

From the first day of senior year in the fall of 2007, (like all seniors) we avoided mentioning the “G word” and cringed when anyone asked what our plans were for the next year. We were still safely ensconced inside the safe, dependable collegiate bubble. The outside world, where concerns over subprime mortgages were slowly mounting, hardly penetrated. Besides, people we knew had graduated and gone to get jobs. Just as we expected we would.

When I did finally graduate in May 2008, Bear Stearns had already collapsed, but I couldn’t see how my experience could fold in on me: I was a double major, graduated magna cum laude, had put in my time as an unpaid intern, and was an editor of a campus magazine at Syracuse University. I expected success and moved to New York so I would be here to interview at a moment’s notice. I signed a one-year lease on an apartment and waited for the interviews and offers to roll in…