generation y – Blaise Lucey

10 Ways to Not Get Screwed as a Liberal Arts Major

Posted on April 9, 2012October 24, 2013 by Blaise Lucey in Culture

Ah, spring. Out on the quad, Frisbees are flying again. Awkward small talk about classes can happen outside, instead of in the dining hall. And, all across campus, tens of thousands of panicked seniors will be hunched over computers, scouring Craigslist for job openings.

Unpaid internships may seem more appealing by the day. Likewise, living at home can be rationalized very quickly, if your parents are anything like the majority of baby boomers.

This is a post for any college grad who can get a job, but is telling themselves that they can’t. Because, above all, you don’t want to become one of the millennials who self-pities themselves into immobility, the ones who have memorized the pie charts from New York Times articles like this one, and simply resign themselves to hopelessness.

Yes, it’s bad out there for college grads, but we’re far from the ones who are most screwed by this economy. After all, we have college degrees… We just have to find out how to use them.

Here are 10 things that can help you find a job, or at least keep you on some semblance of a path, so you can come out of the recession in one piece: Continue reading “10 Ways to Not Get Screwed as a Liberal Arts Major” →

The 3 Reasons All Young Adults Are Liberal

Posted on January 26, 2012September 7, 2012 by Blaise Lucey in Politics

Reading Time: ~20 minutes

JobCrater2 Last month, I wrote a fairly innocuous piece on my Open Salon blog. To say the least, I was surprised by the waterfall-velocity at which comments flooded the article. At first, I was determined to respond to all of them, but soon gave up. What was the point of responding to a comment if I had to write something that was as long – and took as long – as an actual blog post?

As I pondered the deluge, one sentiment from conservatives struck me: that I was too young to understand the wisdom of conservative ideology. As if my neocortex needs to evolve for another ten years, until finally developing that Personal Responsibility Radar that seems to be a byproduct of age.

As if, given the fact I haven’t paid too much in taxes makes me unqualified to speculate about how our country spends the money. I understand, and sympathize with some of the more burnished conservative talking points. Yes, government could be doing a better job. But could private sector companies be doing a better job than the government? Sure, if you want those jobs done overseas. After all, that was the corporate solution to the Great Recession. And how are the workers at Foxconn?

More like job craters, eh? Hahaha.

Continue reading “The 3 Reasons All Young Adults Are Liberal” →

Why Major in Humanities?

Posted on June 23, 2011January 23, 2012 by Blaise Lucey in Culture

Reading Time: ~3 minutes

Last year, when Math majors were struggling with a series to complete their Senior Thesis, I quietly laughed and wrote another short story. But, a year later, maybe the joke was on me.

Really, I can’t tell. I’ve got a job, so I’m more fortunate than most (since 56% of my class of 2010 wasn’t employed by Spring 2011), but even my fellow Humanities majors who also stumbled onto positions have a similar rallying cry: “Wow, I wish I had majored in Business.”

Continue reading “Why Major in Humanities?” →

The Three Faces of Facebook

Posted on May 23, 2011January 23, 2012 by Blaise Lucey in Technology

Reading Time: ~5 minutes

I’ve been using Facebook since 2006. I remember eagerly awaiting my college email address so I could make an account, because I had seen a sample account before and it looked like a set dinner table, with all of the silverware and plates and tablecloth carefully laid out. At the time, I just had a clunky, awful Myspace account, which had turned into some overgrown tangle of weeds replete with parasites and viruses, a lumbering beast of spam and pop-ups. Every time I wanted to look at someone else’s page, it was like a freaking jungle safari and the cursor was my machete.

Unfortunately, my newfound VIP access to Facebook was short-lived, because that was the same year that it opened to the rest of the world and any old peasant with a gmail account and the urge to show all of their friends, acquaintances, and strangers their slide-by-slide biography.

When people originally got their Facebooks, there was an unprecedented level of use, but I think it’s boiled down to three different categories nowadays. And here they are:

Continue reading “The Three Faces of Facebook” →

Gen Y: Vanity and Narcissism Through Music?

Posted on April 23, 2011January 23, 2012 by Blaise Lucey in Culture

Reading Time: ~5 minutes

This wasn’t the exact title of the recent New York Times article. It was The Huffington Post-esque “A Generation’s Vanity, Heard Through Lyrics.” Of course, I wasn’t really that upset or offended by the title, I was a little exasperated. I’ve touched on newspapers and their desperate appeal to their vastly middle-aged to older audiences through generational slamming before.

No, I phrased it the way I thought that the title should have been phrased: as a question. A generation’s vanity, heard through lyrics?

So then, I could answer: no.

Continue reading “Gen Y: Vanity and Narcissism Through Music?” →

Bachelor’s Degrees: A Dime A Dozen

Posted on April 23, 2011January 23, 2012 by Blaise Lucey in Culture

It was March 2010 and I was sitting in one of the uncomfortable, steel chairs of my college’s study hall, looking at the decomposing scraps of snow on the sidewalks below and tapping my finger like a metronome against the mouse. Every now and then, I would gaze at the cover letter on the screen in front of me.

Why did I want to work at Company X? Well, since infancy, I had dreamed of selling whatever Company X made, or doing whatever Company X wanted me to do. Right. And I vastly admired that Company X did whatever Company X’s website said it did.

After slapping on a custom-tailored resume to my heartfelt letter, I emailed it, straight down to the bottomless wishing well where all my applications seemed to go – dropping down without even a splash.

Continue reading “Bachelor’s Degrees: A Dime A Dozen” →

In Defense of the Man-Child

Posted on April 23, 2011January 23, 2012 by Blaise Lucey in Culture

Reading Time: ~3 minutes

Kay S. Hymowitz planted a landmine of a post (read: publicity stunt for her book) on The Wall Street Journal last month. “Where Have The Good Men Gone?” claims that a man in his 20s can “live in pig heaven” thanks to revolutionary advancements such as video games, women’s rights, poor social role models, and pornography.

She cites varied evidence for the gender’s laziness, mostly relying on employment statistics and the rate at which women are outearning men when it comes to college degrees (34% vs. 27%). Hymowitz also brings up “Knocked Up” as emblamatic of the times, beacuse it shows a successful woman and stoner-loser-slacker-man-child.

Continue reading “In Defense of the Man-Child” →

Generation Generalization: Millennials Are The Same As You

Posted on March 23, 2011January 23, 2012 by Blaise Lucey in Culture

Reading Time: ~5 minutes

It didn’t start with the amazingly anecdotal “What Is It About the Twentysomethings?” published in The New York Times last August – which featured a nauseating collage of scrawny young kids that looked like the results of a 12th grade art project – but this sure as hell made it official.

Don’t get involved, I told myself. It’ll blow over. If you complain, you’ll just make yourself a target and people will use select quotes to validate their impression of angry, entitled, slacker millennials.

Continue reading “Generation Generalization: Millennials Are The Same As You” →

Hope and Change Are No Match for Our Generation

Posted on February 22, 2010January 22, 2012 by Blaise Lucey in Politics

Reading Time: ~3 minutes

On a potentially fateful Wednesday, President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address. I sat back, listened to it, and mentally dismissed everything as an exaggeration or an empty promise. It took me a day to consider why I possessed this defensive mechanism.

The answer is simple: our generation essentially gained sentience (pinpointed as somewhere between middle school and growing unseemly hairs) underneath the ignorant grip of the absolute worst presidential administration in the history of our country. We have been raised on a diet of complete and utter political suspicion. George W. Bush lied to the American people about matters for which he should be imprisoned. Everyone knows that. There is proof, too. However, as a nation, we have slowly withered into apathy, cynicism, and helplessness.

Continue reading “Hope and Change Are No Match for Our Generation” →