As the last of the Millennials are set to graduate college and enter the working world next spring, the Baby Boomers (1946-1964) and Generation X (1965-1979) will be working alongside and having to cooperate with the “kids” they’ve complained are entitled, lazy, and self-absorbed. As a Millennial myself, I believe all generations are in for a rude awakening of what is to come. The Millennial cut off is 1995. That means that as common as it is to group all twenty year olds together, anyone under the age of 21 are part of Generation Z which consist of those born between 1996 and 2010. Generation Z will not remember a childhood in the 90s as clearly as their early-2000s upbringing when MTV transitioned into the reality TV show era over music and TSA limited your goodbyes at an airport to the security checkpoint.

Generation Z has grown up in a post 9/11 world where the intent of danger lurks at every corner, therefore they have been raised in an extremely protected environment where feelings were prioritized over schoolyard experiences. 2001 was the beginning of No Child Left Behind educational environment, an act during the George W. Bush administration that would ensure that all American children would succeed through the school system. The 2001 act would create a pattern throughout the American education department that would “push” students through the school system even if they didn’t grasp the material or were prepared for the next grade level. Children were awarded for participation, attendance, behavior, or anything else a school could think of to create a stigma where achievements and academic merit had lost its luster. The effects of this schooling system where everyone was rewarded and all students made it through to the next grade regardless of their academic records has introduced a new wave of young adults that are in their first years of college or are about to enter the university for the first time that are unprepared for the rigors of higher education.

I happen to work in administrative office at my university as we welcome the new applicants of the Class of 2021, I have noticed the same traits that have been slander at millennials in the Generation Z-ers. Their parents, teachers, and society as a whole has admired their actions, recorded their every move, and supplied them with comfort that has hindered them from learning true sacrifice, responsibility, and commitment. The same will be said about my generation and though I too have experienced the same education system that those three years younger than me have, it seems that the ’94 and ’95 kids were stepping out of this protectionist bubble just as it was expanding.

There will be those of us who exceed the limits of our generation’s stereotype and as different as we all are, whether we are labeled as Millennials or Generation Z, one size does not fit all. But something needs to change before the first of the Z-ers graduate college or they enter for the first time. Schools’ need to enforce a plan that prepares high school seniors not only for college but for the real world where the FAFSA isn’t completed by your parents or where building credit means a stable future. Parents’ should show their children the responsibilities of adulthood as they step out on their own for the first time and allow some space and freedom where mistakes and obstacles are faced. Working will be hard, school is not going to be easy, but a wake-up call should help.

Holiday and school breaks not included in the real world.