[840] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Marilee Jones (Dean of Admissions) on the New Improved MIT Student
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Richard Tibbetts)
Tue Oct 2 11:15:14 2001
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Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 11:04:14 -0400
Reply-To: "Documentation at http://web.mit.edu/beland/talk/talk.html"
<MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU>, Richard Tibbetts <tibbetts@MIT.EDU>
From: Richard Tibbetts <tibbetts@MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
The following appeared in last month's faculty newsletter. The faculty
newsletter is available at http://web.mit.edu/fnl/. People might want
to get in the habit of reading it, as another source of information
about what is going on at MIT.
As brought to you by lynx -dump, from:
http://tute.mit.edu:8002/afs/athena/org/f/fnl/www/901/marilee_jones.htm
Observations on the Newest Generation
of MIT Students
Marilee Jones
One of the great pleasures of working in Admissions is that I'm
afforded a bird's eye view of American teenage culture. While the
freshman application has changed little over time and 17-year-olds are
always the same in some fundamental ways, the attitudes, values, and
activities of our applicants do change quite dramatically each decade
or so, heralding the arrival of a new generation. This shift has
occurred again and the leading edge of this newest generation now
fills all four undergraduate classes at MIT. These students are as
different from us as we were from our parents' generation. Their
characteristics bode well for society as a whole, but not necessarily
for MIT as it is today. Their presence will provoke a reevaluation of
our purpose and mission and they will challenge all of us adults to
lead them in ways we are not expecting. They will change MIT as surely
as MIT will change them. And I'm not sure we're ready for them.
The Generations:
First, by way of background, let's consider the different generations
represented at MIT today. A quick comparison of generational
characteristics captures the obvious differences among them. I refer
here to Rocking the Ages: The Yankelovich Report on Generational
Marketing, Walker Smith and Anne Chirman, '97, which describes four
twentieth-century generations: Matures, Baby Boomers, Generation X and
Millennials. (N.B.: These generalizations are meant to capture the
overall characteristics of the given population, not necessarily all
individuals within it.)
The first group, labeled Matures, includes the World War II generation
as well as the following Silent Generation. Matures, made up of 61.8
million members born between 1909 and 1945, were affected most by the
key markers of the Great Depression, the New Deal, World War II, the
GI Bill. As a result, the key characteristics of this group are team
work, commitment, sacrifice, discipline, financial and social
conservatism. (They are also known to the following generation as "The
Establishment.") Most of the senior administration at MIT is made up
of Matures.
Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are the largest single
generation in US history at 77 million members. They were affected by
Vietnam, TV, Woodstock, Watergate, and, of course, sex, drugs, and
rock and roll. Boomers are characterized by idealism, individualism,
self-improvement, high expectations and an intense self-centeredness.
Most current faculty members are Boomers, as well as a little over
half of all student services administrators, including the Dean of
Admissions.
Generation X, born between 1965 and 1978, is the smallest population
of the four at 52.4 million members. They were at the epicenter of the
cultural meltdown brought about by the Baby Boomers in their effort to
separate from the Matures. As a result, members of this cohort are
characterized by pragmatism, diversity, entrepreneurial spirit, desire
for a high quality of life, savvyness. They were most affected by
AIDS, MTV, PCs, divorce, the Internet. This resourceful and resilient
generation created the dot com phenomenon. Nearly half of student
services administrators are Gen Xers.
Millennials, the newest generation, are the subject of this article.
Born after 1979, they will nearly eclipse the Baby Boomers in size at
just under 77 million members (and growing). The Yankelovich Report
describes their markers as OJ, Monica Lewinsky, and multi-culturalism.
I would add the Columbine shootings to that list. Key characteristics
of this group are neotraditionalism, ritual, optimism, technological
adeptness, volunteerism, busyness.
We can see the presence and the impact of these different generations
at MIT over time in [7]Table #1. As you know, all varsity teams and
activities at MIT have been started by students. The 60% increase in
varsity team offerings between 1970 and 1990 was the direct result of
Title 9 which mandated gender equity in athletic offerings in public
schools. The doubling of MIT clubs between 1980 and 1990 came about as
a result of Gen X students who, used to finding community through
common interests, created a plethora of ECAs (extracurricular
activities), quite a different model of community building from their
Boomer predecessors who connected through larger social movements. The
doubling again of clubs and activities between 1990 and 2000 indicates
the recent presence of the Millennials. Though there is no way to
actually know, I would posit that the number of ECAs carried per MIT
student now is higher than in years past. Millennials, as we shall
see, are extremely busy people.
While I agree with the Yankelovich summary of Millennials, I'd like to
share my own observations of this new generation as seen through the
MIT application process, through the changing trends in the essays,
activities, letters of recommendations, interview reports. I preface
this with the clear understanding that I am discussing MIT applicants
from the US (a specialized group to be sure). I am also generalizing
like crazy, since we are now seeing just the leading edge of this
amazing group, the peak number of which has just entered middle
school.
* They are idealistically pragmatic. Combining the idealism of their
Boomer parents and the pragmatism of the Gen Xers, these students
really want to make the world a better place and, most
importantly, they have a plan.
* They are group centered. As the population with the highest
percentage of members in day care from an early age, they have
learned good group skills, how to lead and follow as circumstances
demand. They spend more time in groups and group activities than
their predecessors.
* They have no problem with authority. These students have been
raised in relative affluence in peacetime by Boomer parents. Most
of their free time is spent in adult-supervised activities. They
have little urge to push back against adults. In fact, they
actually like adults. This is shocking to both Boomers and Gen
Xers who still regard authority figures with suspicion, but
Matures find a certain resonance with them.
* They are attracted to large social movements, very much like their
Boomer parents, but look for ways to make their contributions on a
local level, more like the Gen Xers. They are expected (even
required) to volunteer in their communities, working side by side
with adults who teach them competence and effectiveness.
Consequently, they know how to work the system and they always
have a Plan B. Many of our students have already made significant
contributions to their communities while still in high school.
* They are not as likely to study subjects for the pure pleasure of
it, not as likely to focus on one thing, because they are the
busiest students in US history. The majority of my audiences this
age seem to carry upwards from eight ECAs in high school, in
addition to a stiff course load. (I wonder when these teens
actually sleep.) They have essentially been trained to be
generalists. Consider the tension created when MIT Mature, Boomer
and Gen X faculty, who are living their passion, teach
Millennials, who want to learn the material just well enough to
get a good grade so they can move on to the other 17 activities
they have to master that day. This has the makings of a classic
generation gap.
* They desire instant gratification. A member of the Financial
Services staff remarked recently that these kids "have never heard
a busy signal." They are used to surfing the Web and they prefer
Instant Messaging to the phone for the sake of efficiency. (Why
have a conversation with just one friend when you can speak with 8
simultaneously?) With Boomer parents who demand top service and
strive to meet their childrens' every need, these kids expect what
they want when they want it from all of the adults in their lives.
* They may not see or accept the consequences of their behavior.
Adults are always saving these kids. I see that top high school
students who fail exams or miss deadlines due to outside
commitments are regularly protected by their teachers and school
personnel. Excuses are made, adults blame themselves rather than
allow the student to accept the painful consequences that previous
generations knew all too well. Parents do most of the negotiating
with admissions offices now, regularly weighing in on every piece
of the process on behalf of their busy children, taking on an
almost eerie quality of parent-as-applicant. No surprise that
students cheat more often, drop activities if they can't win, cut
corners. Their time is all carved up, given away to multiple and
competing demands that please adults while the adults in their
lives race to protect them from failure.
Is MIT a good match for this generation?
In many ways, we are a good match for them. These kids are hard
workers, carrying up to a third more courses in high school than we
did at their age, so the MIT workload isn't as big an issue to them.
They can balance competing demands. MIT is the firehose. They are
diverse and require diversity. You can't find a more diverse private
university in the US than MIT. They can lead or follow as required,
and there are plenty of opportunities to do both here. They desire
relevant work. We're all about relevance, eschewing ivory tower. They
are intensely busy. Busy is our middle name.
But in many more ways I worry about the match. First, while these
Millennials are busy, they are "diverse" busy, spreading their
energies over many activities, not the "focused" busy of the classic
Techie, who eats, sleeps, and dreams their passion. They desire
structure when we are all about choice. They don't consider "choice"
to be a value as the Boomers and Gen Xers do. These kids were raised
on the World Wide Web and 90 channels of cable. They do not need 30+
choices of living groups - they are busy...they just want a room. You
can see the evidence for this attitude in [8]Table #2, the chart
listing the top reasons why admitted MIT applicants chose to enroll
elsewhere. Last year, for the first time, housing and the quality of
the campus, was the #3 reason why the students we worked so hard to
admit went to other schools. This year, the quality of student life,
which includes housing and campus issues, was #2 on that list. This
generation is voting with its feet. The current housing system with
its myriad choices and arcane rules, an artefact of the Boomer era, is
no longer relevant to the students of today. MIT housing is changing
just in time.
Most disturbing to me, though, is that the MIT Millennials, who have
been raised on praise and positive re-enforcement, are in for real
culture shock. They have been groomed to high achievement, feted by
their schools and communities, have starred in USA Today as well as in
their local papers, have been cheered in their games by adults from
both sides. They have nearly all earned at least state level
distinction in something. Think about that for a second. What would it
have taken to be the state's best something when you were their age?
It is a big deal and they could not have gotten that far without
positive support from the adults in their lives. As we all know, there
is very little of this at MIT, for any of us. These students come to
MIT, ready for us to lead them and position them for the next logical
progression of their lives and they quickly disengage from us because
we do not recognize their specialness. These are not Boomers or Gen
Xers who reacted to this phenomenon by angrily pushing MIT faculty and
administrators away and creating their own islands of support. These
students wonder why we glorify the Big Screw Award, why the only
campus-wide community sentiment is IHTFP, why we tolerate the Tech Is
Hell lifestyle. They wonder why they turned down Stanford to come
here.
Why should we care or try to change?
It is no surprise that I am writing this as Dean of Admissions. Many
faculty who have worked with the Admissions staff and with CUAFA know
well that we are in a tough period in college admissions. Our
competition (Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Yale) is actively
recruiting our kind of students - Techies - at a time when these
students' portfolios are now so balanced they are just as attractive
to liberal arts schools as they are to us. And everywhere universities
are buying top talent. In short, we now have to work aggressively just
to continue to hold our base. To make things worse, Millennials
require a sense of the larger community that can readily be found at
our competitor schools. MIT, with its focus on the individual, without
a sense of campus-wide community, looks pale in comparison, like an
outlier, to these kids. MIT will need to adapt in some ways if we are
to continue to enroll the best students of our type in the world.
What they need from us
Millennials need MIT. Despite their good qualities, and there are
many, these stunning young people need to learn to think analytically
and to question more. They need a sense of context to help them sort
through the dizzying mass of information they confuse for knowledge.
And closer to this Boomer's heart, they need to realize that actions
have consequences, so that in the future they will be less likely to
hand over their privacy - and ours - for the sake of efficient
consumer service. (They don't call these kids "the Abercrombie
generation" for nothing.)
Whether we acknowledge it or not, we adults at MIT do act "in loco
parentis," playing a major role in the lives of our students. Just as
we expect them to meet our needs regarding deadlines, class
participation, attention to detail, etc., they need specific things
from us in order to thrive here.
* They need to understand the rules. For example, we can't assume
that they actually know what is considered cheating these days. It
is possible that they do not realize that pulling something off of
the Web and not citing the source is a bad thing. I understand
that cheating cases of this sort have escalated in the past three
years at MIT, so I encourage you to clearly define your rules at
the beginning of each semester, describe the repercussions of
violating your rules and then follow through if violation happens.
Remember that most adults in their lives cave in to them easily,
so they will push back hard. Stand firm through all of their
excuses and whining. Eventually they will realize that you mean
business and they'll comply because Millennials generally want to
obey the rules.
* They need to hear about MIT's history and relevance in the world
and to be reminded why they are here. This is a big one. These
students know that they are special and they have a sense that MIT
is, too. Yet, once they arrive on campus, they never again hear
about why MIT is so famous. I believe that this is one of the
reasons why generations of bright-eyed MIT students, the best in
the world, have become disconnected, often cynical, by the end of
their freshman year. It is not the workload alone, but a total
lack of inspiration. This past spring I spoke at a leadership
seminar on campus. One of the students told me, in passing, that
he had not been doing well in an advanced course taken by many
freshmen until the professor spent an entire class on the many
ways that MIT specifically advanced that particular field,
describing the history, the people, the same labs operational on
campus today. The student was energized when he realized that he
was part of that legacy. He saw the relevance of the material. He
concluded the semester with an "A" and the confirmed desire to
become a scientist. There is a great lesson here for everyone who
teaches at this remarkable place. Our competition tells its
students that one day they will inherit the world as it is. We
need to tell our students that one day they will fix the world on
behalf of the others who can't. This is not only the truth. It is
the clarion call to this generation, the mother ship calling the
baby ships home. I believe that if we remind our students on a
regular basis that we fix this world, we do what others think is
impossible, we "apply science for the benefit of humankind" as MIT
was founded to do, and they are part of that effort, IHTFP will
dissolve within five years. And the best of our kind of student
will continue to come to MIT for another generation.
* They need to be involved in decision making, but they need for us
to make the final decisions. We Boomers in particular have a
tendency toward consensus even when consensus is inappropriate.
They don't want us to be friends. They want us to lead.
* They need praise and positive feedback. At MIT, we put too much
stock in perspiration and not enough in inspiration. Because we
think analytically for a living, it is often hard to keep that
skill, designed for the world of ideas, from spilling into our
social discourse. We can inadvertently become critical of
ourselves and of others. These students serve to remind us that we
adults hold a special responsibility to encourage these future
leaders of the world with words of kindness as we teach them the
ropes.
* They need to be allies with us. MIT undergraduates have long
existed in what I call a Lord of the Flies World in which, without
adult intervention and engagement, they create their own rules and
live with more danger than we might imagine. These new students
will increasingly find this to be unacceptable because they are
used to alliance with adults. Many of us will need to be more open
to such alliance opportunities as Millennials enroll in force over
the next decade.
From my point of view, the future looks bright. If we assume our
natural role as the wise elders of this community during their tenure
at MIT, and if we apprentice them well, the world will be in good
hands with these Millennials. Not only will this huge population of
very hard workers who care about community do good things in their
lives, they will never let Social Security fail. And that should help
us all sleep a lot better tonight.
