Gizelle Medina is the managing editor of the Daily Titan. All opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of the Daily Titan as a whole.<\/p>\n
Self-reinvention is often tempting at the start of a new semester; however, the urge to rework one\u2019s identity for the sake of success is often rooted in post-grad anxiety tied to the current job market.<\/p>\n
Cal State Fullerton students must now navigate a professional scene where \u2018hard work\u2019 has become a generational trigger word. As the corporate landscape shifts exponentially from the one that greeted previous generations, so must the cultural norms that new-age workers are held to.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The traditional socio-labor contract, which once promised fiscal security and professional dignity in exchange for lifelong loyalty to a single company, has crumbled. Instead of trying to fit into this decaying model, Titans must embrace this multigenerational shift in labor values as a mobilizing freedom to rediscover their own valuation of how education and employment translate into personal fulfillment, outside of rigid, inherited norms.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This shift requires a radical reevaluation of what \u201centering the workforce\u201d means beyond the quantifiable differences between the economy then and the economy now. Not only is the labor landscape drastically different, but so is the relationship between a person and their personal assessment of postsecondary education.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr. Carrie Lane, professor and chair of American Studies at CSUF, notes that many view education as a means to an end rather than its own formative experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever path you choose to go down professionally, you have this core foundation. That’s not how we talk about education anymore,\u201d Lane said. \u201cWe talk about \u2018bang for your buck,\u2019 who gets employed right out of school, and \u2018What’s your major?\u2019 and how’s it gonna buy you a job, and \u2018How much money do you make with this major?\u2019 So we’ve adopted a different language.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Generation Z, work-life balance, career development and a sense of purpose are prioritized criteria, whereas Baby Boomers craved more rigid paradigms related to performance, output and perceived success.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These newly embraced non-monetary incentives underscore a desire to reject wages as a sole motivator in seeking employment, calling for a new standard to replace the current faulty and arguably infantile system.<\/p>\n
Tethering one\u2019s journey to a single model of success suppresses the adaptability required to navigate the professional precarity of today\u2019s economy. Success metrics must pivot from mirroring broad, fleeting socioeconomic norms to personal evaluations of purpose carved from one\u2019s complex identity.<\/p>\n
Rather than harping on recycled worries from the early 2000s era of mass white-collar job losses, the younger generation must find comfort in knowing that doubt regarding the linearity of how a degree translates into a job is not unique to modern circumstances.<\/p>\n
What is due, however, is rejecting the pressure to \u2018pay your dues\u2019 in a framework that Lane argues no longer exists.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lane notes that if employees are expected to work hard for a reward that no longer exists, abandoning that expectation is not a sign of entitlement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the colonial era, American parents were saying, \u2018Kids these days, they’re so lazy.\u2019 It’s every generation that always thinks the younger one is underperforming in some way,\u201d Lane said. “It seems super smart to me that younger people are saying, \u2018I don\u2019t want to do that, because there\u2019s no golden ring at the end.\u2019”<\/p>\n
This inward reflection is Gen Z\u2019s rational adaptation to a volatile market.<\/p>\n
Gerard Beenen, a management professor at CSUF, suggests that the stress felt by the “anxious generation” \u2014 a title given to Gen Z by psychologist Jonathan Haidt \u2014 is amplified by “threat rigidity,” which is the tendency to view obstacles, like artificial intelligence, as a threat to be avoided rather than a challenge to be approached.<\/p>\n
\u00a0“If you view it as a threat… instead of as a challenge or an opportunity, a whole different series of chemical cascades flows through our brain and our nervous system,” Beenen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While older generations may view job hopping as a lack of commitment, it is often a strategic response to a world where changing companies is the only path to financial stability.<\/p>\n
Rejecting the pressure to see oneself as a mere LinkedIn profile challenges the widely accepted norm of existing as a well-curated brand marketable to a company. Students thereby bypass the temptation to exploit or degrade their identity for the sake of professionalism, creating a unique framework for themselves instead of matching a recruiter\u2019s buzzwords.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a firm believer in \u2018career is a calling,\u2019 and I encourage people to pursue their passions,\u201d Beenen said. \u201cA career is different from a job. A career is a sequence of job experiences that are somehow coherently linked so that one follows after the other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Titans must root their value in college education beyond mere vocational training to position themselves in an ever-changing society as thoughtful, well-informed people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A degree is not a guarantee of a job, but it provides a significant advantage over those without one.\u00a0 By prioritizing personal values extracted from a rich collection of experiences over the expectations of an old-fashioned corporate ladder, Titans can ensure their contribution to the world is never hollow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gizelle Medina is the managing editor of the Daily Titan. All opinions expressed in this article are those…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,59832,5676,31866,130804,12758],"class_list":["post-464759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-capitalism","tag-career","tag-job-market","tag-post-grad","tag-workforce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}