When you hear the words "college student," you either think of:
Or you think of:
If you thought of the first image, then you're right! All college kids do all day is party, sleep and nurse hangovers. They don't need to keep a minimum GPA for their scholarships or future academic endeavors. That's preposterous. College is clearly synonymous with partying, look it up. Generations before us never had fun. Never.
Adults are always saying, "You don't really know what it's like, just wait until you get out into the real world." And it's true. Between multiple part-time jobs, endless assignments and projects, being the President of SGA, interning, sports, job applications, grad school applications, basic human necessities and sleep, we can always find the time to get lectured, so clearly we have too much time on our hands. This is not the real world at all.
We also have time to be on social media! We are constantly sharing those articles about climate change, feminism, LGBTQ+ rights and the occasional cute puppy video. Why do we waste our time informing ourselves on the issues and trying to spread awareness? College teaches us nothing! What makes us think we have the ability to form critical thought?
And those cute puppy videos are a waste of time, who cares about mental health? Work until you die so you can prove you're not lazy. Anyways, your Uncle John has already got that job covered when he shared that video about how climate change is a concoction from feminist lesbian liberals. We still make time to inform ourselves, this is not the real world at all.
Millennial college students are all lazy, privileged brats. We don't have jobs or student loans to pay off. We don't spend endless hours finishing that 20-page thesis. We don't care about our community. And most of all, we don't know what the real world is! We're pushed into choosing our college, our major and our career before most of us are even at the legal age to sign our own papers. But this is not the real world at all.
Prospective employers expect us to have had a master's degree, three relative internships, five jobs and proficient skills in every program possible. We need these for any old male manager to even take us seriously, worse if you're a woman. Stop complaining! This is so easy, generations before us had to do this, right? Wait a second.
Well clearly, we're just not trying hard enough or maybe we're trying to reach too high in a world that says it's OK to pay us less than the living wage. We have been kicked down by the people who birthed our generation and yet we are gullible enough to continue forward to try to prove our worth. This is still not the real world.
The real world is paying your bills, dealing with nasty co-workers, difficult bosses, cooking meals and going through rough times on your own. We know nothing of this. We don't pay for anything at all, don't work in groups, don't deal with superiors, don't eat or go through life without guidance. The resources are just being handed to us.
Living in the real world includes being bitter, narcissistic and oblivious to the internal struggle. No matter how many years of school we go through, we will never learn this. Our society is doomed. We are lazy. We are ignorant. We are too optimistic and involved.
