It's so much easier to just call it like you see it. Middle schoolers are sassy, annoying, extremely talkative brats, while high schoolers are all obsessed with image, dating, and cars, and college people only care about going to class as secondary to drinking too much, going to all the parties, games, and more places to... drink.
Of course those descriptions are ridiculous to anyone that spends time with teens from middle school to the start of college. Some parents, in the attempt to make sure their teen doesn't turn out this way, place a great deal of pressure to achieve the consumer-culture's idea of success: go to college so that you can get a job, which in-turn ensures a good salary, so that you can live the American Dream - just the way past generations did it! What the people living the American Dream don't tell you is that living the American Dream means living knee-deep in debt and being overworked with no definite security that you will always have a job. With differing values among many teens today it should not be expected that teens do life the same way everyone before them did.
Author Jeffery Arnett reveals in his book Emerging Adulthood that we cannot simply call college students by the same name. “None of the terms used in the past are adequate to describe what occurs today among young people from their late teens throughout their twenties. There is a need for a new term and a new conception of this age period…” (Arnett, 21). Arnett lines out four types of college students that are typical at most universities:
1. Collegiate: believes the college experience is not complete without being a part of fraternities, parties, going to all the football games, and going out at night to drink with friends. The collegiate isn't a slacker, just excited to experience all that college has to offer.
2. Vocational: wants to do his or her 4 years, get the diploma, and get out. The vocational is predominantly in college to learn a trade and get a job. Learning is all about turning the skill into money, not necessesarily learning because it's interesting.
3. Academic: every professor's dream. Makes top grades and slaves over every class and assignment. The academic may or may not know what he or she wants to do for a living after school but excels in school as a current means of achieving success.
4. Rebel: attaches to classes and professors and therefore performs well in the classes he or she finds interesting and respects the teacher. However, for classes that are seen as irrelevant to life and teachers they don't respect, he or she will not engage as much and, if they pass at all, will only pass by a narrow margin.
These 4 subcultures show that there are different ways of doing life and different value systems in play constantly. How can we, then, push only one acceptable way of achieving success? If the consumer-culture is right as to their definition, only the vocational and academic have a hope in this world, and we know that this is simply not true. The collegiates and rebels have a whole lot to offer by being who they are and having their values focused and used well.
