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Understanding Millennials - Spend As You Learn

By Julianne Scibetta, Albany College of Pharmacy

"A penny saved is a rarity in US." That was the headline last week greeting me and my bowl of vitamin-enriched cereal and low-fat milk. Considering our vast amount of wealth in this country, this seemed a bit surprising to me. I'm no pinchpenny but I would think any rational person would want some kind of emergency stash or buffer of some kind. How could Americans be spending more than they have earned and saved at such a rate that the entire nation's average looks so bad? Combined with the pending retirements of baby-boomers, the article continues, the savings rate should actually be going up. The general culprits come to mind: the economy, unemployment, gas prices, housing and mortgage rates, interest rates, health care, the cost of higher education, yadda yadda. Yet some Wall Street execs, according to the article, seem to think it's a matter of Americans taking pride in their spending ability - in having money and being able to dispense with it at will, often immediately. Money, in a sense, has lost its value.

Later that morning I was in a meeting with a student who declared to me that one of his goals this semester was to purchase a new game station being released in April. Without a job and little dispensable income I told him that it might be just a tad difficult to raise $300 in three months. But he's been saving, he said, and if he comes up short he'll just figure out the rest.

"I'm excited, though," he said. "I'm getting like $18 back from my tax return, and that'll be my concert ticket."

"Concert? What concert? That's $18 more towards the game station!"

"I know! But I want to go!" He proceeded to tell me all the details of bands and venues I did not pretend to know, and we marched on toward the meat of the meeting: "I just don't remember anything that I learn. I learn it for a test, and then after that it's gone. It's 'cause I don't care about the subject and I don't see what knowing every muscle of the body has to do with my degree." Fortunately this particular student has chosen a medical field, where of course knowing the muscles is going to be a valuable commodity for him. But I can also understand his frustration of this exercise as being "busy work," because anything he'd ever want to know he can easily look up literally at his fingertips. What's the value of learning it right now if he'll have so many resources (perhaps even better ones) available at a time when a question might come up?

That statement inspired me to consider thinking about our current commodities, how dispensable they are, and how that may have an effect on our students' long-term learning.

Part of my job in conveying studying methods to students is to provide the value for their education, and to show them how to find their own value for it. Our terms for creating success also come laden with connotations of our social, material equivalents of success: money. Treasure studying; it's a valuable tool. Your education is an investment for the future. Keep this in your memory bank. Studying will build upon itself if done consecutively and consistently, like the interest gaining on your savings in the bank.

Except there's nothing in the bank to gain interest.

As educators, we think we're motivating students by baiting them with the carrots of money and success. Now I think we're missing the mark. Money isn't as valuable to Millennials as it may be to previous generations. They've had more of it at a younger age than their parents did, and they've had a lot more things to buy with it, too. Just as they're learning more advanced topics at a younger age, and can access an entire library's worth of knowledge on their cell phones - more than any of us ever had to do. The little details - and pocket change - are temporal, being constantly replaced at a rate we haven't yet begun to understand. No wonder they detest committing things to memory for longer than one exam: it's counterintuitive to everything they know to be true.

Of course there's a chance I'm blowing this out of proportion. Surely everyone has their own memories of cramming for tests, going to classes they hated, spending hours on mindless and mind numbing work on a topic best saved for trivia games. If not money, if not that good ol' supply and demand that drives a free market, what the heck can we use to motivate students for success?

You can go the cynical route and say power. Millennials have been proven to be more competitive than ever before, turning getting into college into a major consultation business and reality show. Know this material, you say, and you'll be rewarded more than any other person in this room. After all, you'll be competing in a highly skilled job market; you need that extra something to outshine/outwit/outlast all the others. Don't forget that through all this, Millennials have been socialized to expect success.

We can go the touchy-feely route, which Millennials are actually quite comfortable with as well (ever hear of blogs?). Millennials are just itching to do good, if only they were given the chance. Real-world applications aren't always transferable to all topics. Of course philanthropy can become a contest, too - how many people did you potentially save this week? - but at least it's behind a good cause.

If you were to question a student about what motivates them, you'd probably still hear the traditional stock answers, most of which will be external factors: their parents, the jobs and the money that can be made. The trouble is, these aren't good enough - and students know it. In a random experiment, I asked a few students what motivates them to stay in school. The consensus: "To prove it to myself, that I can do it." Perhaps the reason why they're branded as apathetic is that we haven't given them enough credit.

Let me rephrase that: we gave them enough credit, but they've spent it all.

If you have a Millennial question, comment, argument, or other interesting point of discussion, I'm more than open ears to it! Please email me anytime!

Questions or comments? Contact the author at j.scibet@usip.edu.

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