25 Great Essays

“Twentysomething: Be Responsible, Go Back Home After College” by Ryan Healy and “The ‘Responsible’ Child” by Florinda Vasquez.
2. Both Healy and Vasquez use the word “transition” to describe the time between graduating from college and becoming independent; however, Healy also tried to explain this as a “stage.” What is Healy’s purpose in calling the phenomenon “a stage”? In your opinion, is this phenomenon simply a transitional period, or a stage of life, or both? Explain. The transition time between graduating college and becoming autonomous is commonly used in both essays: “Twentysomething: Be Responsible, Go Back Home After College” by Ryan Healy and “The ‘Responsible’ Child” by Florinda Vasquez. However in Healy’s essay, she tried to define this transition as more of a stage. The time between college and adulthood is described as “a self- focused stage where people have the freedom to focus on their own development” (Healy 173). The stage that Healy tries to portray is used to help college graduates prepare for the brutal world that have been covered by blinders and have recently unleashed them. The period of time between college and adulthood requires most graduate students to live with their parents, as the money that they are trying to save will increase over time. The money that augments as time goes by will help college graduates to become more stable as they move out of their parent’s domestic area. Rather than college students focusing on “rent, bills and kids, emerging adults living at home with their parents have the ability to focus on the most important aspects of emerging adult life: figuring out who they are and what career is right for them” (174). This phenomenon is both a simple transitional period and a stage of life because living with parents is beneficial. This transition is common with most graduating students because it allows the students to enhance their knowledge on the different types of career they wish to pursue in. It is however also a stage of life. The stage is defined both between adolescent and adulthood where one accept the responsibility of becoming independent.
6. If an adult child does need to reply on his/her parents through the transition to full independence, which of the following paths, as Vasquez points out, is the best route to take: going away and coming back or attending a local university and living at home? In your opinion which is the best solution and why?

Attending at a local university and commuting from home is one of the best transitions to full independence. Before one attends college, their entire life was originally spent at home. When a students commutes to a college, they are still at home which means that they are comfortable with the nature of their living. Commuting from home also saves parents from going through a financial crisis, as dorming is expensive. This allows the student to become wise and understand the value of money. Usually when one goes to a local college yet still lives at home, he/she enhances their knowledge daily as they grow to become more independent. “For generations, it’s been traditional for young adults to have to work their way up in the world; it’s a formative experience intellectually, emotionally, and materially” (Vasquez 175). As a student lives at home, everything is given to them, but as the students grows “intellectually, emotionally, and materially”, the student becomes more independent. If the student lives with the parents it is easier for him/her to work their way up as the student is stable and has support financially and morally from their parents. However after one goes to college, becomes completely independent, then moves back home “signals a reluctance to take on [the] challenges, as well as a sense of entitlement to a particular lifestyle that [the] young adults grew up with and don’t want to sacrifice” (175). This reluctance shows languor as well as the obstinacies as refusing to become independent. Not becoming independent will stop one from achieving goals to becoming self-determining as well as stop them from becoming exposed to the atrocious world beyond their backyard.

“Grow Up? Not So Fast” by Lev Grossman
2. Gross states that our current culture trains young people to fear becoming adults. Do you agree or disagree? Explain using concrete examples. The modern culture significantly impacts the way children develop. Similarly, it gives adolescents anxiety about maturing into adulthood. Lev Grossman mentions how twixters do not have the aptitude to sustain a single a pathway to succeed which concludes them into constantly changing jobs and may even result to an unstable marriage(s). Twixters are expected to jump “from job to job and place to place until they find what they’re looking for” (Grossman 144). Sometimes twixters are also synonymous to a person whom is “lost” and doesn’t have a determined objective. The change in culture most twixters are unstable to accomplish solidity, as it would be considered at intimidating. As role models illustrate to younger’s stating how brutal the real world is. The culture that has been depicted over the decades believes that one has to create them in order to have an identity. Twixters are “looking for a sense of purpose and importance in their work, something that will add meaning to their lives, and many don’t want to rest until they find it . . . they want something that’s more like a calling, that’s going to be an expression of their identity”(144). Finding the perfect job, or even the “perfect” place to live would be the only objective for twixters as they are looking to create themselves and gain their identity. They want to be unique and stand out from others. Twixters are someone who wants to make a mark in the world. The only reason they would fear something substantial as becoming adults is that it might be to late to have an identity at that time. If one doesn’t have an identity, he/she doesn’t have a purpose.
6. Do you like the term “twixter”? What other terms have been used for this new demographic group? Which do you prefer? Explain your preference. Twixter describes the modern generation of college students and anyone else in the age confines of 24 to 29. However this word has a negative connotation along with the terms such as Generation X. Twixter is synonymous with adultscence, kidults, boomerangkids, and youthood. Even though these synonyms are partially offensive, they have the same definition as twixter. According to Lev Grossman, twixters connotations lets readers believe that is a dejected and futile tone. Researchers that were mentioned in the essay believe that society “no longer provides young people with the moral backbone and financial wherewithal to take their rightful places in the adult world” (Grossman 141). The term twixter expresses an age group that is futilely trapped between adults and adolescents, which is also referred to as “betwixt”. The author believes that their stability in society leaves a negative impact to those around them. The reason for this theory concludes that “twixters are in denial about growing up, but the rest of the society is equally in denial about the twixters” (147). As Grossman leaves a negative impact on readers, society suppose that they are better off with twixters. As twixter leaves a negative impact on readers, it shouldn’t have been excessively in the essay as it is offensive. Since this essay focuses on the group of peers who organize the twixter population and later broadens the generation as a whore, results to this essay as inductive.

“Boomerang Statistics” – Culture Shock
2. There was a significant increase in the number of young adults living at home with their parents from 1960 to 1980. What happened over this 20-year period that might account for this jump? The Boomerang Statistics table illustrates the number of “youth adults living at home: 1960 to present” (Goshgarian 151). The statistics analyze data that show the census for males and females living at home compared in the years of 1960 through 1980. The accounted for the jump between the twenty-year period could have been because of the recession, the Cold War, and/or the Vietnam War. Many students were forced to go back home as the threat of communism hovered over America. The peak of these number showed in “1987-1992” (151) as many event have taken place during these six years.
3. In the previous article, Grossman observes that a new life stage is emerging. Based on the information in this graph, would you agree? Explain. The new life stage is when a college graduate stays at home before he/she is exposed to the real world. This stage has been inferred in the data as “1987 [has] 21,142 males”(151) while in “2000 [has] 18, 563 males” (151). Between the thirteen-year differences, the number dropped almost three thousand students. This depicts that more college graduates are exposed more of the world instead of going back home. More students have taken risks in working immediately. This illustrates that the “new life stage” is not emerging because the numbers have declined. Because the number declined, there really is no phase in between.
“Maxed Out” by James D. Scurlock
2. Review the story of Chris and Luke, who sold themselves to First USA in exchange for college tuition. What accounted for their success? Why did they discontinue their relationship with the credit card company? Would you be more likely to sign up for a credit card promoted by another college student?

This deductive essay refers to the story of Chris and luke who advertised themselves as human billboards for the bank. The success was achieved because of the absurd move for the consumer and advertising world, “even for a credit card company, this was an act of extraordinary chutzpah.” (Scurlock 154).