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American Dream is Elusive for New Generation

nytimes.com

51–60 of 90 posts

Re: American Dream is Elusive for New Generation

#51
post #46
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say yes - I was pigeonholed as a Java Developer for 10 years...

Oh come on. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps if you don't like that. Find a hot new language and play with it in your spare time. Start an open source project with it. Contribute to the community. Then apply to jobs with that knowledge and skill set on your resume, and you'll break out of that role. Just have to want it.

[deleted]

Re: American Dream is Elusive for New Generation

#52
post #46
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say yes - I was pigeonholed as a Java Developer for 10 years...

Oh come on. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps if you don't like that. Find a hot new language and play with it in your spare time. Start an open source project with it. Contribute to the community. Then apply to jobs with that knowledge and skill set on your resume, and you'll break out of that role. Just have to want it.

There is not that much time left with a job. There is something to be said for focussing on what you want. What I might hold against "those kids" is lack of imagination. They wait for opportunities instead of creating them.

I am not a java dev anymore, but I sure lost a lot of time.

Re: American Dream is Elusive for New Generation

#53
post #45

He's 24 and his parents are still paying his cell phone bill? Yikes.

Is this particular point so terrible? I'm 23 and am still on my parents' plan. The marginal cost of keeping me on their family plan is so much less than the cost of me getting my own line that it makes little sense for me to get my own, even though I could easily afford it.

In the context of the article, it reinforces the idea that he's spoiled - that while his parents continue to pay all of his bills, he turns down what most of us would consider a more than reasonable starting salary given this economy, his major, and his lack of experience.

I would assume that in your case (since you could easily afford your own line), you're at least reimbursing your parents. This guy isn't.

Re: American Dream is Elusive for New Generation

#55
post #45

He's 24 and his parents are still paying his cell phone bill? Yikes.

Is this particular point so terrible? I'm 23 and am still on my parents' plan. The marginal cost of keeping me on their family plan is so much less than the cost of me getting my own line that it makes little sense for me to get my own, even though I could easily afford it.

[deleted]

Re: American Dream is Elusive for New Generation

#56

This article is insulting, this is not the American dream. The American dream has never been about the pampered children of the elite working their way through subsidized higher education and finding exactly the right job just out of college with no experience. The American dream is about working your ass off and scrambling your way up the ladder. It's about entrepreneurism and opportunity. It's about hard work and d…

> That dream is as alive as ever

While I agree that the article chose the wrong focus, I think you're wrong. Look at the American Dream on a societal level: while there will continue to be outliers, the fact is that today's younger generations are doing worse than their parents by many measures.

How on earth is that "as alive as ever"?

(More abstractly: I think the whole American Dream thing is a destructive myth, due specifically to its fixation on "elbow grease" at the expense of the many, many, other factors that play into success.)

Re: American Dream is Elusive for New Generation

#57
post #47
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Killer quote: "If you talk to 20 people," Scott said, "you’ll find only one in manufacturing and everyone else in finance Umm, no...

Well in Canada (Montreal city) they are a lot of student in Mangament/Finance and a lot less in other fields. People think finance is the "only" way to make big easy money now.

All the talk about the big bonuses in Wall Street during the US crisis sent the wrong signals, I suspect.

I daydream about working at a Wall Street bank from what I read here on HN occasionally about the paychecks (currently can't because I'm not an US or EU citizen)

Re: American Dream is Elusive for New Generation

#58
These articles emerge like cicadas every few years, especially during temporary economic downturns. The definition of the 'American Dream' is nebulous enough that you can always, for the purpose of the story, define it as what today's kids won't have as easy as their parents.

Re: American Dream is Elusive for New Generation

#59

This kid that turned down a 40K a year gig for something "perfect" is an idiot that deserves what he gets. The first thing I would do if I was looking for a job is... get a job. ANY job. I've got an engineering degree, and I'd start flipping burgers or hauling trash or whatever just to keep working. THEN I would start looking for a more suitable career job. It's pretty simple. As a hiring manager looking at two poten…

Yeah they could have picked a more sympathetic subject.

Or at least a more typical subject. The very fact that this person has a college education with no debt puts him at a steep advantage compared to most Americans his age.

Another way to read this article is that someone with this kind of advantage is still unable to attain their definition of success, therefore people that do not have this advantage are even worse off. Meaning, that this person needs to either become an adult and take any job he can get while redefining their definition or stop complaining.

Not that I agree with that point, there are plenty of people without this advantage that are very successful, but I suspect that this article is meant to be comforting to the many other privileged readers of the NY times.

Re: American Dream is Elusive for New Generation

#60
post #46
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say yes - I was pigeonholed as a Java Developer for 10 years...

Oh come on. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps if you don't like that. Find a hot new language and play with it in your spare time. Start an open source project with it. Contribute to the community. Then apply to jobs with that knowledge and skill set on your resume, and you'll break out of that role. Just have to want it.

Agreed, I worked in .Net and Java for a few years, decided I wanted to get back to PHP, started up an open source project, started talking about it and mastering the language in my free time. Now I work a PHP job that I love and I like to think having a couple thousand lines of example code out in the wild gave me an edge.
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