Boomers and Gen-Xers Millennials: Understanding New Students

Summary:
The authors of this article stress the differences in learning styles and life experiences of students from three different generations. Most interestingly noted is the difference in the Generation Xers and the “millennials”. Gen Xers are students who experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rise of AIDS and the World Wide Web, the Challenger shuttle explosion and the Exxon Valdez oil spill. These students who are often thought of as the college generation of today are slowing exiting the college community as they age and entering today is a new generation : the Millennials. Millennials are students born after 1982. These students “exhibit different characteristics from those of siblings just a few years older”. This includes some of the flowing (116):
• Gravitate toward group activity
• Identify with their parents values and feel close to their parents
• Spend more time doing homework and house work, less time watching TV
• Believe it’s “cool to be smart”
• Are fascinated by new technologies
• Are racially and ethnically diverse
• Often have at least one immigrant parent (one in five)

Today’s college experience is vastly different than the college experiences of the current generation of professors in the university setting. Some trends in colleges today include an increase in part-time enrollment, more female students and more student over the age of twenty-five. To help meet the learning needs of these new, nontraditional students who have grown up immersed in technology, colleges need to learn to use technology to improve their customer service. Students today grow frustrated if there is a lack of information available or slow responses to requests. Technology can help alleviate some of these frustrations by providing online access to financial aid resources, 24 real time assistance, etc. This efficient customer service, the authors say, is “a prerequisite to retention and effective learning” (118).

Response:
I found this article to be interesting to me, but not useful in my current place of employment. However, as a college student myself and a member of the Millennial generation, I found what the authors said about the differences between my generation and the Gen-Xers to be validating. I’ve never identified with that generation when it’s being characterized in other articles or in the media. It’s comforting to know that there is a reason for that…I don’t belong with the Gen Xers! In general, I find their characterizations of my generation to be accurate; we do identify more with Baby Boomer values. However, our main difference as students will definitely be our level of comfort and expectation about technology. Technology has always been a resource and tool for my generation and as students we do expect a level of efficiency and availability of technological resources. The will be an important point to the success of universities in the future as Millenials enter the college world.

Oblinger, D. (2003). Boomers and gen-xers millennials: Understanding the new students. In J. Hirschbuhl & J. Kelley (Eds.), Computers in education (115-120). Dubuque, IA: McGraw Hill.