Today's Millennial Students

Today's student-how are they defined?  The focus of the Southwest Seminar's for Great Teaching focuses on that question.  How are students different than those of other years?  As you know, today's students have been defined as millennials-those students born between 1981 and 1999.  Today's college freshman who just graduated from high school was born in 1992.

As with any generation of students, millennials have characteristics that differ from other generations.  Today's blog post will focus on five of these characteristics,  and next week's post will add three more to the list.  A later post will focus on how we might want to change a few things to accomodate our students.

Alicia Moore in her article, "They've Never Taken a Swim and Thought about Jaws:  Understanding the Millennial Generation,"  goes into quite a bit of detail about the characteristics of the Millennial generation.  I'll summarize her points here and next week, but if you have time, you might want to read her article.

Characteristic 1:  Millennials are diverse.  This group is ethnically and racially diverse.  In addition, there are more females than males enrolled in higher education.  These student accept cultural differences more easily than previous generations, and have more support for gay and lesbian relationships. 

Photo from thehammockssouthside.com

Characteristic 2:  Millennials are pressured to perform.  From early on,  millennials have been told they need to do well to be successful.  Even playing hours of video games has taught them that a lot of hard work and hours will get them to the next level.

Characteristic 3:  Millennials are ambitious achievers.  This group of students has taken AP classes and many have plans for advanced degrees.  According to Moore, these students are also team players, since they received trophies for participation as well as winning in their young lives.

Characteristic 4:  Millennials are confident and optimistic.  This is the generation that has seen tremendous growth in technology and inventions.  Being smart is not considered a weak point; being "geeky" may be seen as a favorable characteristic. 

Characteristic 5:  Millennials are team oriented and connected.  As mentioned in the third characteristic, millennials have been part of teams for most of their lives.  In addition to the team aspect, this group of students is close to their parents.  According to the College Board, the parents are dubbed "helicoper" parents because they "hover over their children, swooping in to fight their battles and make their decisions for them."  (The College Board article gives some good reasons for being a helicoper parent.)

As you read through the list of characteristics, think about your students.  Do they exhibit behaviors that reflect these characteristics?  Do you related well to their points of view? 

Next week, I'll provide the remaining characteristics and provide expert's suggestions on how to be the professor the millennials relate to.

Have a great week!