"Get an education for a career that will survive hard times because the older you get, the more difficult it can be to stay afloat."

Hmm, and what might that be? At one time it was computer programming, that is until 2001 when offshoring took hold. At one time it was financial services - no explanation required. Management conultants still seem to be doing well, but as always if you haven’t gone to an ivy league school getting hired can be difficult. 

So what career is it that you think will survive hard times? 

100% true, Joan! The hue and cry of our new grads seems to have come out of the world economy not at all realistic. Every class has spent at least 6-9 months finding employment, either during the last year of education and the first months, or if they waited, after graduation. Nothing’s changed, really - except the present 20s generation has yet to reach a level of responsibilty that keeps them from relying on their parents, and "just doing it (working)."  I don’t know about you, but I would never have asked my parents for help, as long as I could function, and move about.

What today’s youth do not yet understand, in every decade we had low employment years, and it took many of their parents months to find new jobs, especially when the aerospace jobs crashed, and then, the high tech industry crashed (the 90s). Everyone was urged to accept "lateral placements with training" in their own companies, or plan on no job! Most did not take that training, fearing lower wages, etc; however, the outcome was the same, no job.

The problem was that few parents told their kids about "it" or how bad things really were. Suicide? You bet. We saw a lot of it in the 70s, 80s, 90s during such "crashes," and the S&L horror took many lives, and many life savings, thanks to the grande Arizona S&L that started it all - and it’s head honchos.

Nothing is perfect, but we must realize that our youth have the energy and ability to live in communal settings, earn little and make it just fine, while they work on developing their minds towards a career, and contacts to carry them forward. Tough Love is in order.

(We have 2 grads in the family this month - common for us. One from college, and she started interviewing mentors the summer before her junior year, and started working as an intern in her secondary major the following November - guess where her best job offer came from?)

Chris—With all due respect, in 1978, by the time I finished putting myself through college, I was so broke I did not have money for basics, like food and rent.  Telling young people to volunteer is, in many instances, not realistic.  Not everyone had a home with parents to go back to and rely on until they were on their feet financially.  Some of us had to hit the ground running out of necessity. 

However, at this point in my adult life, after being laid off, I have realized volunteer work is perfect to find a different niche.  The work I spent 25 years of my life doing does not exist anymore, not in large cities.  I have contacted volunteer groups at the NYC library and elsewhere, in hopes of eventually finding work that has a paycheck.  The surprising part is, in this economy, volunteer groups have a waiting list.  I think a lot of us need the social networking that a job used to bring.