Lost, or on an Odyssey?

Last week I spoke with a student who was a wreck. She was thinking of going into Teach for America. She wanted to travel. She was interested in doing something international and thinking maybe the Peace Corps. She wanted to work with people, helping them, but wasn’t sure just how. Mostly, she just didn’t want to get stuck in a job after graduating only to languish there until her dotage. She may be the poster child for the “odyssey years.”

On October 9, 2007, in an article by the same name, Op-Ed Columnist David Brook coined the term “odyssey years” to describe this generation of 20-somethings. He asserts this stage should be added to original four common life phases: childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. He looks at the 20-somethings as people on the journey to adulthood, exploring their options, and engaged in the odyssey of maturing. Rather than jumping into marriage and family, this generation is postponing these activities in favor of learning more about the world and their place in it. They’re also delaying permanent employment. According to Brook, “People who were born before 1964 tend to define adulthood by certain accomplishments — moving away from home, becoming financially independent, getting married and starting a family. In 1960, roughly 70 percent of 30-year-olds had achieved these things. By 2000, fewer than 40 percent of 30-year-olds had done the same.” Is this a “failure to launch?” He says no. It’s the odyssey of young adults who move back home, travel, work short term jobs, go in and out of school, and are generally exploring their options in much more depth than any generation before.

(Also interesting is that there’s been a shift in the balance of power between the genders. Thirty-six percent of female workers in their 20s now have a college degree, compared with 23 percent of male workers. Might this be part of why people are holding off on marriage, since it’s not clear who the breadwinner will be?)

So are these people who are failing to achieve adulthood? No. Instead they are embodying the spirit of fluidity that is almost a necessity after surviving a childhood characterized by an excess of structure: school, ballet classes, soccer practice, preset play dates, band practice, tutors, etc. Even college is rife with pressure to over-commit by joining various clubs, intra-collegiate sports, internships, part time jobs and structured social activities. A person could easily argue that these “odyssey years” are imperative to help people confront and learn to survive the “uncertainty, diversity, searching…” and just plain vicissitudes that are part and parcel of everyone’s life.

Add to this the economic instability of the early 2000’s and you get a stronger sense of 20-somethings’ experience. In the latter part of the 20th century, economic downturns came pretty predictably about every ten years. Since 2000, we’re already seen two, the current being the worst in memory for most folks alive today. This makes for a dodgy job market. Combine that with the fact that technology, off-shoring and downsizing leave students uncertain about what jobs are even out there, let alone what job titles they’re known by, and you can see where a few years of kind of floating over the top of the job market might be a better strategy than deciding on a career which might be outsourced tomorrow.

Brook concludes, “The odyssey years are not about slacking off… Rather, what we’re seeing is the creation of a new life phase, just as adolescence came into being a century ago.” So, rather than try to get my student to figure out the rest of her life, we just talked about next steps. Since she can’t do everything she wants to the moment she graduates, what make the most sense as a first step, and what as the second? What might give her some assurance of a short-term income in a weak economy? She has some more research to do to figure this out, but I think she is less panicked about her plan. She understands that if she doesn’t come up with a definitive answer for a few years, she’s not lagging behind or slacking off. She’s on her odyssey, and will return from it a more experienced and mature worker, no matter what she decides to do or when she decides to settle down.

Micael Kemp is the director of Career Services at UCSB.