In a recent New York Times column, David Brooks writes about what he calls “the major rite of passage in our society.”
Brooks notes that most people experiencing this rite of passage are not even aware of it. It takes place between ages 22 and 30, and it’s the transition into ?adulthood.
Although Brooks’ column ends on a positive note in saying that this rite of passage is a phase, “not a sentence to a life of video games, loneliness and hangovers,” and that “by the age 30, the vast majority are through it,” he also voices many not-so-positive things about college graduates in their 20s — some of which I don’t necessarily agree with.
Brooks bases his discussion on the rite of passage on information from the book “Aspiring Adults Adrift” by Richard Arum and Josipa Roska. According to Arum and Roska, “the average student at a four-year college studies alone just over one hour per day.” For some reason, Brooks or maybe Arum and Roska infer that this is “roughly half of how much students were compelled to study just a generation ago.”
Now the wording is a bit ambiguous here. It is hard to gauge the meaning behind the phrasing of students compelled to study. A student can be compelled to study and not study.
A student can study but not be compelled to do it. It’s hard to see the relationship between how compelled a person is to study and how long a person studies, or whether that person ?studies alone.
However, Brooks and Arum and Roska’s research all seem to indicate that “academic life is of secondary or tertiary importance to most students,” and that “social life comes first” — as if this is something bad or ?unconventional.
This casts the idea that perhaps college students ?today are not as hardworking as college students in previous generations. A more cynical reading would suggest that ours is a generation of slackers and socialites.
But I think our generation’s way of approaching our academic and social life is a change for the better. Many people on campus probably recognize the importance of academic life, but not everyone wants to make it a priority for them.
Put in other words, people might recognize the importance of getting a car as a necessary mode of transportation, but not everyone would have getting a car as their number one priority.
Maybe someone has other, more dire things to worry about. Maybe someone recognizes the importance of a car, but still wants to focus on being content with themselves without needing to have a car.
The same goes for our academic life. Our generation’s ways of prioritizing social life over academics could be a way of recognizing the importance of academic life, but also having the wisdom of knowing that there is more to life than academics. To me, this is a more practical way of approaching our ?challenges.
Thus today, the rite of passage is not “one marked by video games, loneliness and hangovers,” but one where we learn about ourselves, our values and our priorities to help wean us off of financial dependence and ?unemployment.
Unlike what Brooks and his sources may think, it is during college that we acquire the skills necessary to successfully undergo this rite of passage into adulthood and end up as better, happier ?individuals.
nywu@indiana.edu
