First Generation College Students

“Here are some broad descriptions about the generation known as Millennials: They’re narcissistic. They’re lazy. They’re coddled. They’re even a bit delusional,” said Josh Sanburn of TIME Magazine. The above quote has some validity, but it also fails to address the reasons why millennials are labeled the way they are. Individuals in the current generation face a wide variety of challenges because of aspect that deal with social, communication, and financial skills. Challenges also occur because society fails to prep individuals for college and institutions focus largely on teaching classes just so students graduate rather than focusing on teaching students real world skills. Millennials are categorized as a generation that consist of individuals …show more content…
They generally have to figure things out for themselves, rather than be taught from older generations. Difficult situations that can arise for a first generation college student include, but are in no ways limited to knowing how to complete certain task, knowing the inner workings of FASFA, and knowing what a basic budget should be. To begin with, one individual from my research said, “One of my biggest challenges will be having to be independent. It will be the first time that I’ve left home, and I’m so used to my mom doing a lot of things for me.” People have a tendency to become too dependent on other people to do things for them, and millennials are not exempt for this generalization. Millennial dependence on parents to complete task for them shows two things: individual inadequacy and societal inadequacy. Dependency can be seen as individual inadequacy because millennials allow themselves to become disengaged and have other people do things for them. Furthermore, dependency can also be seen as societal inadequacy because groups in society, such as parents allow themselves to complete task for their children that the child ought to be doing themselves. An example of this is evident in the fact that one of the participants in my research said, “Siblings have helped me understand what to expect in college and what to do about FASFA, but if I don’t understand something my parents will probably just do it for me.” This also shows that some parents would rather complete one of their children’s task over seeing their child struggle, even if it the task is as simple as filling out a form. It also shows that society is somewhat incompetent in the ability to prepare individuals for certain aspects of college. Millennial dependency is a direct result of societal inadequacy, and millennials lack of knowledge of a basic undergraduate budget stem from their

Show More