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Show THE REST BUILDING THE WORSE.. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• BILANLL WORKPLACE WOULD DECREASE AGEISM e often think of stereotypes as being centered around controversial issues such as race, gender and religion. However, one very harmful class of stereotype that affects more than one subset of society is ageism. The manifestation of stereotypes against both old and young determine who gets opportunities in the workforce and who is deemed more or less competent. Ageism is just as demeaning as attacks against someone's race or sex because their effects are just as debilitating and hurtful. The connotations of the words "old" and "young" are pretty clear in our society, especially in the sphere of professionalism. The elderly are deemed forgetful, inefficient, rigid and adverse to change, while youth are thought to be inexperienced and distracted. Both stereotypes are invalid, and both are economically and socially damaging to two crucial components of our world. We usually see ageism affecting the elderly more than young people, but society as a whole needs to acknowledge that it targets both groups before we can work towards removing it from our professional and personal lives. The competition between old and young in the workplace is no stranger to the media and looms over many of our heads as we graduate from college in hopes of landing a job. With the 2007 economic collapse, thousands of people lost their jobs and struggled for months or even years to gain back their livelihood. As more and more students graduated and started to look for employment, older and more experienced workers were seeking the same opportunities. As expected, the older worker was seen as more competent, and the younger one was pushed aside, given no opportunity to gain the experience needed to survive in a corporate world. In addition, due to the unpromising and inconsistent factors of retirement funds and stability, many older people have been retiring much later than their predecessors. The proportion of men aged 20-24 working fell from 70.4 percent in 2007 to only 58 percent W in 2010 and is only recently making a slow climb. Youth unemployment is still at a shocking 17.1 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Young people leaving school with no stability should receive as much credit as older people holding onto jobs because of the same lack of stability. The youth have as much potential as the elderly, and delaying their opportunities to grow in the workforce will only hurt our economy in the future when there is a whole generation of people with little to no work experience. We need to work with retirees in order to make sure they are well taken care of, if they feel they are ready to retire, and also start to balance the age groups represented in major companies and firms. However, it is not fair to say that the elderly should be crowded out of the workforce to make room for the young. Growing older in a world obsessed with technology is undoubtedly difficult, but it is not impossible to adapt and learn. It must be remembered that the older generation was trained for a world which no longer exists, but their age doesn't signify an immutable decline. Rather, each individual has the potential to become comfortable with how our world is today. Take, for example, Barbara Beskind, a 91-year-old woman who has dreamed of being an inventor since the age of 10. Beskind recently got a job at a Silicon Valley top designing firm, IDEO, famous for designing the Apple mouse and other devices. She focuses on the advent of products related to aging and believes that age brings a certain experience you simply cannot teach. Beskind regards her coworkers, many of them young and fresh out of college, as family. They learn from one another, bounce ideas off of each other and use their respective strengths to make up for one another's weaknesses. That is precisely how every company and aspect of the workforce should be. Ageism currently affects both the young and the old in negative ways, but if we used differences in age to bridge gaps instead of widen them — while ensuring that there is balanced and fair representation of both groups in the workforce — the stereotype would slowly but surely be eliminated. letters@chronicle.utah.edu 12 { THECHRONY I NEWS I OPINION I ARTS I SPORTS I WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 2015 } STUDENT SHOULDN' (TR( verybody knows college students are famous for their ramen noodle diet. College is expensive. According to Christopher Avery and MALORIE Sarah Turner in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, "Total student loan debt rose to over $800 billion in June 2010, overtaking total credit card debt outstanding for the first time:' Avery and Turner also noted that at the time of the article's publication, the student loan debt clock, an online tracker of American student debt, had risen to close to $1 trillion. At the time this article was written, student loan debt was at $1,254,816,644,268 and was increasing "at a rate of about $2,853.88 per second:' As if the cost of tuition isn't high enough, students face bills for onand off-campus housing. Some students have the luxury of living at home and commuting; however, many do not. Even those students who do commute are faced with the financial burden of high gas prices. This is true for students all over the country. Since the price of college is probably going to do nothing but increase, we might as well have some fun embracing the stereotypes and learning how to be frugal to save our pocketbooks. For example, Juan Lopez, an undeclared student at the U, claims that whenever he goes to a place such as Ugurt, he saves the plastic spoons for future use. This way he doesn't have to pay for spoons to stir his coffee or eat his cereal. While it is common to find poor college students all over the country, we are lucky at the U to have many resources for help. If you are struggling with managing your funds, the U's Personal Money Management Center may be able to offer some assistance. Also, we have a local campus food pantry for those in need of food — or those who are just tired of ramen noodles. letters@chronicle.utah.edu JAHN E ollege dorm living is usually a student's first experience with FIONA roommates. It is different than most other situations in that your roommates are usually randomly assigned, leaving your first-year college experience up to an algorithm and an administrator's approval. And even if you end up bunking with your friend from high school, you have never lived with them before, and you haven't yet experienced all of their "cute" habits. Sure, living under these conditions may be hard in Sage Point or Chapel Glen, but nothing compares to the hell at the Marriott Honors dorms. Of course the Honors dorms are swanky, with their living rooms, kitchens and separate bedrooms with high ceilings, but roommates are forced to really "live" with each other. There is no cafeteria to escape to for meals or a hidden study area in another building close by. You have to share the fridge and you have to share dishes and you have to share your TV because the cable plug is in the living room. The dorm life of luxury can be awful. I have experienced these terrible living conditions myself. For me, there are two reasons why roommates in the Honors dorms are much worse than any other dorm. Reason one: overachiever personalities. There is a reason your roommates made it into the Honors College, and it has nothing to do with their ACT scores or high school GPA. Your roommates are in the Honors College because they continually rise above the academic call of duty. They want to be the best and make everyone else look bad. Now imagine having four people or more like that living together. Clearly, there are going to be some issues. And of course, the stereotypical overachiever personalities — whether you're dealing with a feminist scientist, a music-obsessed would-be writer or a wannabe hipster — are naturally at odds when it comes to study habits. In my dorm, some of us blast music, others pretend to not care while we secretly study our brains out and some of us sleep on our math textbooks so we can absorb the information. When everyone wants to be the best, coming out on top can become an all-out war. The second reason the Honors dorms are the worst? College students and festering kitchens. Imagine an 18-year-old college freshman who can solve differential calculus equations yet can't properly load a dishwasher. The only time someone throws out their expired food is when the smell emanating from the fridge is enough to knock you out. Next thing you know, someone spills Snapple under the fridge, and you've got enough ants to film the sequel to "A Bug's Life." And the best part is that no one is going to do anything about the spill because the cleaning staff will do it in a week or two. If the sanitation conditions aren't bad enough, sharing food can also be difficult. All of my roommates have different tastes in food. One is lactose intolerant, one is a self-identified vegetarian who eats chicken and fish, and one puts jam on her turkey sandwiches. Despite these varied preferences, I have found all of my roommates stealing my food. The vegetarian judges me for buying Oreos and Captain Crunch only to be caught sneaking away with them later. One can apparently eat gelato and jam and turkey on the same sandwich. I'm not buying it. I just want to be able to come home after class and binge on Doritos without being judged. Is that too much to ask? Ultimately, roommate scenarios are much, much worse in the Honors Dorms because you actually have to live together, unlike the other dorms where you mostly just have to sleep in the same room. Food-sharing and annoying study habits can drive someone crazy. It's as if all that hard work in high school wasn't worth the prestige of the cookie-cutter Honors dorms after all. letters@chronicle.utah.edu C BOOMER l3 |