In college, we grow as people more than we ever have, and even realize. Our independence, skills and interests, and knowledge all sky rocket —
but that doesn't necessarily tie to our maturity developing with them. Time after time, I witness college students that display a newfound immaturity, despite how far they have come in every other aspect in college. It's quite extraordinary how someone can have such incredible intelligence, but at the same time, be unsophisticated in just as many other areas. Carrying on immature behavior ultimately downgrades all of our good traits we've worked so hard to earn in college. There is a new kind of immaturity instilled in our generation that many of us seem to show, seeing it as a normal trait the rest of us have today. There are also factors among us that have changed us so immensely, but how much they have changed us have gone completely unnoticed.
For one, our generation seems to have reached an all-time high in regard to feeling a sense of entitlement, according to the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) Freshman Survey. This survey has been recording students' opinions of themselves annually for decades, and concluded that recently, college-aged people have the highest opinions of themselves than ever before. These findings could furthermore conclude that a lot of us might unknowingly have a ridiculous sense of entitlement, and also may feel the need to compete with so many like-minded individuals who also think of themselves as superior. From having this general high ranking of ourselves, some of us might also find it more acceptable to behave however we want. But where else could this new generational behavior come from?
The exact answer as to why is ambiguous, but fundamental values in today's society that influence us so greatly, can be the cause of different and uniform behavior. Social media, for instance, was a huge change for the Millennial generation to adjust to, and a major distinction that separates us from previous generations so much.
If only social media could solely enhance our developing selves, but the amount of people getting offended by mundane things today, along with judgements constantly being made —
all of this has made it clear that our behavior changed poorly from the new feature of our generation. It's not uncommon that I see incredible accomplishments of fellow peers on LinkedIn, and then see a completely different side of them on Facebook either attacking people with their overly-opinionated selves, or posting pictures of them at a party. The issue of today is that everyone throws out their views on social media as if they have to be right on every single aspect of society. Again, having a heightened sense of entitlement can make us feel the need to assert our "superiority."
But social media can't be the only thing that causes immaturity to stick with people later in life, as everyone has different reasons for acting this way. Another might be from the fact that our generation has created so many separations among us, which include: vegans, gluten-free people, "hipsters," fitness people that take their lifestyles way too far, and now the wonderful election that has divided us even more by supporters. In what should be a typical state where everyone accepts that there are other areas within the state, mine has each area label and hate one another; despite how close we all actually are.
All of these divisions make us question how exactly to be ourselves, in a society that is so separated from one another, and makes everyone feel like they have to choose sides, or be categorized by one of them. For some reason, our generation managed to do this without accepting that others can have different lifestyles. The battle between vegans and meat-eaters today is almost never-ending, and it certainly doesn't help anyone accept other views easily.
On top of all this, each of the aforesaid factors came into the Millennial generation's lives, and really escalated right as we were growing up. It's honestly an unusual change almost no other generation can relate to. Younger kids are expressing their typical young and confused behavior on social media, which they are increasingly using as much as we do. This is all while we exhibit all kinds of immature behaviors on social media, from all ages
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We might feel pressured more than the previous generations, to stand out in different ways today, and we might be exposed to new ways of interacting — but we can't let that overcome the importance of achieving personal growth.
Hopefully people will come to realize that college is the time to reinvent ourselves in only good ways, and being aware of what we need to improve on. It's crazy how we can develop such higher skills, that go so far as to guide us towards a career path and motivate us to get there —
but not help us learn how to improve our maturity. College opens a lot of doors, but can open so many others if more of us were as mature as we should be at that age.
