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 Personally, I feel like I am in generational purgatory (I am in my mid-thirties), because I do own an iPod, have similar tastes in music to some of the students, and have a working familiarity with video games. Yet I also remember Jimmy Carter, can conceptualize what it was like before a person was put on the moon, and love Benny Goodman, the Temptations, and the Beatles. There seems to be a clear generational divide between my parents (born about 1946) and current students (born about 1989), but I can relate to both (I was born in 1970). I suppose I am answering a question with another one that might help me to get at advising this generation—is there a standard dynamic that one generation shares culture with its immediate predecessor and successor, but go two generations apart and there is a strong divide, or is it that generational boundaries are becoming blurred?~ Wes Lipschultz, Penn State University, July 5, 2007 I find myself having to explain what long distance and land lines are and that our neighboring big city is long distance! Students today have had cell phones since they could use a phone.Anyway, I have a student preceptor that has team-presented our meeting during first-year orientation. He will also be available to answer “student perspective” questions throughout the year. He helps me to better understand this generation's needs and he helps the students to know how to be successful as a student. He delivers the difficult messages (like how many hours a lab really takes per week and how hard it is to get in to MD programs) that students will only believe if it comes from someone they can relate to (i.e. not an “old” person). ~ Amber Soergel, University of Arizona, July 6, 2007 Generational differences are relatively easy to manage as long as the adviser is interested in learning from the advisee. While the interests and experiences of today's students may appear quite different than what I used to do or had back in the “good old days,” the key is to understand the meaning they have for today's students. Going past the superficial expression to connect with the sense of purpose, passion, and meaning is what truly connects the adviser to the advisee. Once this common ground is discussed, then the stories or anecdotes from the adviser's perspective about the ways in which the adviser demonstrated these deeper-level expressions will be understood and possibly welcomed by the advisee.~ Rey Carr, Peer Resources, July 17, 2007 The Mentor is published by Penn State's Division of Undergraduate Studies Available online at www.psu.edu/dus/mentor/ Privacy and Legal Statements | Copyright | © The Pennsylvania State University | All rights reserved | |
