Conversations with an Undergrad

Today I spent an hour talking to one of my brightest Running Start students.  This young woman took my U.S. History II course last quarter and was a very active participant in the discussions.  One of the questions that I asked the class at the end of the quarter was "what was the impact of the protests that happened in the 1960s."  This inevitably led to a discussion of the differences and commonalities of Americans ages 16 to 90.  What the class decided is that those of the current generation are very much like that of the 1960s, where they want societal change to happen immediately and that protesting is the only way to get what they want.  This generation (the 16 to 35 year old group) is also one that expects instant gratification for everything thanks to the world in which they grew up.

This last lecture apparently struck a chord with this student because during Spring Break she sent me an email asking if I thought that there was a correlation between all of the young people getting married out of high school today was similar to that of the Baby Boomer generation.  Since I did not initially respond, she was in my office today asking the same question.  One of the conclusions that we came to is not only is there a definite correlation between the Baby Boomers and her generation, but the idea of getting married at a young age is a socially acceptable thing for those (especially of a lower socio-economic class) that don't see college as something they can achieve.  So, since college is out of their reach, the next best thing is to get married early; a trend that has been around for generations.

So this led to the question of, why is it that those of a lower socio-economic class are rarely encouraged to go to college?  Why do we as adults only encourage those from the middle classes to go to college for something more than just a simple trade?  These questions didn't have answers, but the conversation and the connections that the student was making was, in a word: awesome.

As an instructor, you always hear about students coming to dig deeper into the history that is talked about in class.  It is really encouraging to see someone so young look for these connections.  It is even more encouraging to know that this young woman is planning to become a teacher herself.