I have been on a bit of a mission to figure out what the "deal" is with my current batch of undergrads. I was in their position less than a decade ago, and can not help but notice some stark differences between the cohorts. Chief among these is energy. Sure, I dragged myself to some early classes with messy hair and whatever t-shirt I was pretty sure was clean. But my classmates and I were generally optimistic about what we could accomplish and had a sense of purpose that made the hard work worth doing. Current students seem to have just kind of landed at a university, and have interests, but not necessarily purpose. It is already hard enough to learn some of the unwritten rules of university success when you know what direction to row in, but can be brutal if a student is simply aimlessly paddling in the middle of the ocean. I may approach this topic more in the future, but one of the pieces of feedback I have received from my students consistently is that they feel hopeless, because they see so many problems with the world and feel powerless to solve any of it. This article is my advice to those students.
First, understand the landscape. Students today are the most well-equipped they have ever been regarding technology and information. Students are accidentally learning about the world more than their parents ever could if they made a real effort. Any given tik tok feed might feature information about climate change, politics, war, poverty, human rights abuses, natural disasters, and myriad other problems that all seem existential. Today's students seem to have an interesting personality trait that makes this barrage of bad news particularly tough to cope with. They are incredibly tuned into the world around them. Social media has compounded what was already a difficult task in fitting in at school, making students extremely self-conscious and self-aware. I think much of this stops after high school (thank god), but my current students still seem much more intentional about the way they dress than I did when I was student. This is all to say students feel pressured to be thinking about how they are perceived and their connection to the world around them more. My interpretation of this problem, especially after speaking with my own students and reading the accounts of others, is that where I can see the same barrage of content and compartmentalize it (while still being reasonably concerned/empathetic as appropriate), students of today absorb it into their environment and feel an immense amount of responsibility to solve these myriad problems, or at least help be part of the solution. This process is naturally incredibly overwhelming, as even "doing your part" to mitigate half of the aforementioned issues takes up so much mental bandwidth without even considering the physical steps one would take.
My advice to students is to understand it is not all on you to solve these global issues. In fact, most of it is not on you. Very little of it, really. This is easy for me to say, but difficult to absorb. But it can also be helpful in finding purpose. There is a Native American proverb: If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both. Rather than try to do a little bit or let your brain get inundated with lots of small steps, pick one or two issues and let that guide you. If a student cares a lot about the environment, for example, pick a major like environmental biology, political science, or urban planning and fight as hard as you can for that cause. Turn your anxiety into the thing that gets you up in the morning, or helps you power through finals. This is the easy part. The hard part is then trusting your classmates to do the same with the other problems. We cannot fix the planet with everyone trying to solve everything. Instead, devote yourself to a cause and let others pick up the slack in other areas. Trust that if you do everything you can to become the best climate scientist or advocate you can that your classmates will pick up the mantle of ethnic violence, or inequality, or one of the many other problems out there. Finally, do not let anyone make you feel guilty for not caring enough. Those people are arguing in bad faith, and often have done very little themselves for the thing they are ostensibly fighting for. Caring is not enough, and it is a drain on your cognitive load. Rather, focus on doing what you can, and doing it the absolute best that you are capable of.
