Last week’s news gems are hidden in the Style section of the NY Times- I have to start reading that section first! The piece on secondary virginity is amusing and disturbing enough, but it’s the one on bratty summer interns that I can’t quite get my head around. It’s an amusing piece on rich and famous daughters and sons of the rich and famous, who intern for New York’s “glamour” industries- fashion, publishing, film, and so on. So, they’re well-connected to these industries, they use their name to get the coveted internships, the parents subsidize all living expenses, and they’re precocious brats on the job— shocking news. [Although, rest assured, Barbara Bush Jr. is a “hardworker,” and “not afraid to get her hands dirty,” according to her boss, Designer Lela Rose.]
These famous last names out-dress their employers, out-spend their employers’ salaries on lunch take-outs, take lots of cigarette breaks- this kind of thing. The general sentiment is that they’re privileged and for some strange reason have a sense of entitlement. Hmmm.
But then the article shifts to a more general discussion of bratty interns- mostly in fashion. They’re coming from all over- University of Michigan, Bard, or University of Rhode Island, for example- and they’re not just “fashion” or “merchandising” majors (art history or [gulp] media studies majors, for example). Anyway, the interns turn bratty because they often feel their “talents ignored” within the unpaid work environment- they feel underused and overeducated to be doing grunt work.
“I mean, how much time can you spend in front of a copying machine?” one intern asks.
What? This is where I’m stuck. The whole political economy of US unpaid internships is a stunning capitalist accomplishment anyway (another rant, another time), but what I’m left thinking about are my students- the 20-year olds that I see every day. No, wait, the bratty 20-year olds that I see every day.
In thinking about academe as a changing institution and my role in it, I’m inevitably lead to consider resultant changes in the student body. And I think there are changes. I’m so often bewildered by students’ boldness, audacity, lack of humility, and general sense of ENTITLEMENT. It’s in epidemic proportions, really- seemingly cutting across race, class, or gender boundaries (I also think this is one of the most under-considered topics in more formal discussions of pedagogy, but that’s for another time).
The students (and parents, if they’re paying) demand; we instructors supply. It’s an increasingly customer/service provider relationship, complete with consumer-rights language and “you work for me” attitude (this rhetoric comes out quite strongly whenever there’s some sort of labor dispute or public ideological debate at the university). If it weren’t for this damn mercenary system, indeed.
But you know, after reading this article on bratty interns, I’m thinking maybe the University Student Brat is a phenomenon much much much larger than just a business-model fall-out. Much larger, but I can’t put my finger on it. Can we blame it on the 80s? Or George W., The Education President? Or is it just me- getting older, starting the process of youth idealization?
Oh, and incidentally—just yesterday (7 weeks into the summer term), my students told me that class is supposed to end at 2:10 instead of 2:15. They’ve let me keep them 5 minutes over the scheduled time all term.
These famous last names out-dress their employers, out-spend their employers’ salaries on lunch take-outs, take lots of cigarette breaks- this kind of thing. The general sentiment is that they’re privileged and for some strange reason have a sense of entitlement. Hmmm.
But then the article shifts to a more general discussion of bratty interns- mostly in fashion. They’re coming from all over- University of Michigan, Bard, or University of Rhode Island, for example- and they’re not just “fashion” or “merchandising” majors (art history or [gulp] media studies majors, for example). Anyway, the interns turn bratty because they often feel their “talents ignored” within the unpaid work environment- they feel underused and overeducated to be doing grunt work.
“I mean, how much time can you spend in front of a copying machine?” one intern asks.
What? This is where I’m stuck. The whole political economy of US unpaid internships is a stunning capitalist accomplishment anyway (another rant, another time), but what I’m left thinking about are my students- the 20-year olds that I see every day. No, wait, the bratty 20-year olds that I see every day.
In thinking about academe as a changing institution and my role in it, I’m inevitably lead to consider resultant changes in the student body. And I think there are changes. I’m so often bewildered by students’ boldness, audacity, lack of humility, and general sense of ENTITLEMENT. It’s in epidemic proportions, really- seemingly cutting across race, class, or gender boundaries (I also think this is one of the most under-considered topics in more formal discussions of pedagogy, but that’s for another time).
The students (and parents, if they’re paying) demand; we instructors supply. It’s an increasingly customer/service provider relationship, complete with consumer-rights language and “you work for me” attitude (this rhetoric comes out quite strongly whenever there’s some sort of labor dispute or public ideological debate at the university). If it weren’t for this damn mercenary system, indeed.
But you know, after reading this article on bratty interns, I’m thinking maybe the University Student Brat is a phenomenon much much much larger than just a business-model fall-out. Much larger, but I can’t put my finger on it. Can we blame it on the 80s? Or George W., The Education President? Or is it just me- getting older, starting the process of youth idealization?
Oh, and incidentally—just yesterday (7 weeks into the summer term), my students told me that class is supposed to end at 2:10 instead of 2:15. They’ve let me keep them 5 minutes over the scheduled time all term.
posted by MM at
11:11 AM
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