"I'm disappointed with millennials," said my boss in summation of the lows of her week. "I received several job applications from 'professional millennials,' and even worse, 'professional millennial feminists.'" With one seemingly innocent word, the individual applying for a job just labeled himself/herself as entitled, spoiled, whiny, self-absorbed, and any other cynical adjectives. Now I do not blame my boss—who would want to hire someone that is actually proud of being narcissistic? But beyond cliche descriptions, millennials have a lot on their plate with the digital age, new ideologies, and world disillusionment that does not necessarily say that they're doomed.

Millennials are the generation born between 1990 and 1995, blurring into the late 90s. Those born after 1995 are the "new and improved" Generation Z, often still roughly categorized together with millennials. Mark Zuckerberg, startup founders, freshly out of college, college students, and even current high school students all compose the new generation. While my boss would be considered Gen-Y (early millennials in their late 20s now) and I belong to Gen-Z, both of us are part of this modern phenomenon.

While 79 percent of the Baby Boomers, aka our parents, are proud to call themselves such, millennials loathe their generation name and everything associated with them, Pew Research Center concludes. We hate the name primarily because of all the negativity associated with it. The Baby Boomers, however, influenced the collective outlook of the millennials—they raised us after all. The New York Times characterizes the Boomers as "the most iconoclastic, self-absorbed, and grandiose generation in history." No wonder that the millennials are self-absorbed when their parents were save-the-world-boomers. Prime example: Steve Jobs. Now the same responsibility falls on the kids, and they are way more likely to do with modern technological advancements.

Despite the fact that Boomers might have invested some of their worst qualities in their kids, I would not immediately blame parents. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and even Tim Berners-Lee did shape the "digital generation." The only contrast lies in that the elder millennials' social media influencer was MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube while Gen-Z takes to Snapchat, Instagram, Slack, and Vine.

The millennials are the most impatient and bored generation. Interactions beyond 140 words are unacceptable, and information becomes available instantaneously. “We tell our advertising partners that if they don’t communicate in five words and a big picture, they will not reach this generation,” said Dan Schawbel, the managing partner of Millennial Branding, to NYTimes. Millennials are quick witted, selfie-obsessed ,and short-attention-spanned for sure, yet these are the qualities that help them adapt to the modern world.

The newer millennials have learned from the mistakes of their predecessors. The change is deeper than Facebook to Snapchat and better-educated Internet safety. Gen-Z millennials grew up with completely different attitudes. These are individuals least likely to have qualities like “patriotic”, “willing to sacrifice,” “religious,” and “politically active/” Same-sex marriage is a constitutional right, the first African-American president is a given, and alternative energy and immigration reform is mandatory from a millennial point-of-view.

However, the millennials are the most self-critical generation. Only 32 percent of millennials consider America the greatest country on Earth compared to 50 percent of Boomers. They do not trust organized religion, they are socially awkward because they generally do not trust people, they cannot trust Social Security, and thus their entire being can be characterized as skeptical. To justify this, they grew up in the relatively peaceful 90s only to have their innocence lost with the September 11 attacks and two economic crashes in 2000 and 2008. The millennials grew up conscious and realistic rather than sheltered. Perhaps their parents and the digital world spoiled them, but these were just to soothe the harsh realities.

This is perhaps the most advanced generation yet the most clueless. No generation before has grown up with a gadget in hand, and all the information in the world at the tips of their tiny fingers. While Gen-Y might slightly remember a world without Internet, some of the Gen-Zers are not even in their double digits of age. They were born at the same time as iPhone 4, and they will probably never even know what an iPod was, or worse, a flip phone without data.

Millennials! They are slightly cynically pragmatic and career-oriented, but who can blame them—they have to figure out the whole "Internet thing" to their benefit and fix the world that previous generations messed up.

Lesson-of-the-day: Still, "Millennial" is not a profession! Do not list it on your resume if you want a job.