Perspective on the strikes last fall

I just read this New York Times article: Europe’s Young Grow Agitated Over Future Prospects.

Though the article focuses on Southern Europe and features stories on young Italians and Spaniards, it does make me think about the problem of raising the retirement age in France. As I wrote before, I was given strike literature all last fall by teachers at my school, and most of it used the justification of our students struggling to find jobs in a market full of 65 year olds hanging on for a few more years to get their retirement benefits!

Another interesting bit in this article is that the featured youth are all highly educated and underutilized: one is a PhD who could only make $750 a month teaching kids drama, and another has a masters and a law degree in addition to speaking five languages and worked for the government unpaid! I couldn't help but think about my friends that have graduated in the last two years in the US recession mess and couldn't find decent jobs. Many of them are going to grad schools or doing Americorps to buy some time and experience. Especially coming from the hyper-competitive Furman, I feel like we were all told that we were going to be business executives, doctors, lawyers, and general movers-and-shakers in the world, but I'm afraid we'll all just be working as bank tellers or at McDonalds in the end!

Then poor PA was heckled by his family at Christmas about all of his Master's degrees... Let us hope that we get into a good US program and find internships that lead to interesting careers! All of this youth anger at the systems in Europe is scaring me!

Anyway, read it, and remind yourself that the US is a land of opportunity :)