American nightmare: high expectations and few opportunities

There is a famous anecdote about a man who heard the roads in America were paved with gold. Upon moving to America to cash in on this, he discovered three things.

First, the roads were not paved with gold.

Second, the roads were not paved at all.

Finally, he found out he would be the one who had to pave them.

As young people in the United States, we constantly hear success stories about “making it big” and growing rich and famous. The proportion of success stories to real success, though, is very skewed in the direction of the latter.

Students on their way out of college are having trouble getting jobs at all, let alone jobs that bring with them illustrious titles and fat paychecks.

There are far more Joe the Plumbers than there are Steve Jobses.

Most jobs students pursue require some form of experience. The problem arises, though, when we can’t get jobs because of that very lack of experience. The classic Catch-22 arises when we ask how one gets experience in the first place without finding a job for lack of it.

One of the ways around this is to take an unpaid internship, in which we can do work that gives us the experience necessary for many jobs, without getting paid for the work.

This is ridiculous because it does not help us to truly get settled in the world. The opportunity to make connections and get our feet wet can be valuable, but it remains yet another stage in the long process of education en route to actually making a living.

The previous generation is struggling, but in its struggles, it has denied our generation access to paid internships, job opportunities and Social Security.

We’re in trouble.

This is all derivative of the “follow your dreams” mentality that’s been ingrained in our minds since we were children.

Contrary to the popular belief of our third grade class, a five-foot-two-inch white girl will not make it in the NBA. Sorry.

This mentality only puts us on paths to attempt success in what we enjoy, foolishly believing the money will come later.

Well, sometimes the money doesn’t come, and children who are taught this mentality turn into very unhappy and financially floundering adults.

So, while each of us is getting our gender studies degrees and planning how we’ll make millions, we’re actually setting ourselves up for failure.

Because the likelihood of getting a high-paying job in our desired field is a lot less than the likelihood of working at Pizza-X.