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To the Editor:
Re “‘Selling Out’ Isn’t an Insult to Gen Z” (Sunday Business, May 26):
Francesca Mari captures the zeitgeist that we in the social sector are battling: Even as the world’s challenges are more visible than ever, the percentage of graduates putting their full-time energy toward tackling them isn’t growing.
Not only do we need this generation tackling world challenges as soon as possible, but as Ms. Mari’s reporting points out, graduates’ early destinations shape the people they become. Research about the impact of the Teach for All network’s two-year teaching commitments shows dramatic effects on participants’ beliefs about the roots of inequity and how to address it.
Before we blame the young people, let’s consider what we’re doing as a society to foster their sense of agency and intentionality about where to put their time and energy. Most colleges and universities profess neutrality about students’ career choices, even as their career service offices allow employers to “pay to play.”
We can tell a lot about the trajectory of the world by looking at the first destinations of the most promising members of this year’s graduating classes. As parents, influencers and educators, we need to foster choices that will shape the future we collectively want to see.
Wendy Kopp
New York
The writer is the founder of Teach for America and co-founder and C.E.O. of Teach for All.
To the Editor:
I started my undergraduate studies at Dartmouth College excited to dive into the depths of a liberal arts education: economics, government, engineering, theater, fraternity parties.
I was perplexed by the immediate barrage of pre-professional ambitions. College, my dad had told me, was for learning how to learn. Anything I’d need to know for a job, I’d be able to learn on the job.
I didn’t know what my professional goal was, and I got swept up in the fray of corporate recruiting, listlessly writing cover letters and flying out to all-day interviews. The resounding campus consensus convinced me that getting a corporate job (ideally in finance or consulting) was important.
Today’s campuses are full of young people who’ve spent their high school years optimizing to get into a name-brand college. Of course this leads college students to focus only on getting jobs at name-brand firms that provide those name-brand salaries.
As an elder Gen Z, now five years into my career, I’m grateful for the liberal arts education that allows me to critically consider my contributions to the world. I just wish I’d spent less time as an undergraduate pursuing jobs that interested me only because of their prestige.
Tara Burchmore
Washington
To the Editor:
For most of Gen Z, “sellout” remains a negative label and one we don’t deserve.
The reporter profiles three male Harvard students, a poor representation of who Gen Z is and where we attend college. The article’s restricted characterization of elite-college-attending Gen Z students presents my generation to readers as happily embracing sellout culture. I beg to differ.
I attended Dartmouth and later Washington University, from which I graduated last year, for my undergraduate studies. Now I’m a graduate student at the University of Chicago.
I’m no stranger to the sky-high percentage of elite university graduates selling out. I’m also quite familiar with those in the other camp: the Gen Z activists who have led the recent college campus protests or the students who acknowledge that meaningful social change takes diligence and time.
Some of my peers consciously opt out of sellout culture because they recognize that the progressive change many of us stand for is simply incompatible with the function of sellout institutions and the associated lifestyle (I turned down a lucrative finance job after a summer internship there showcased this incompatibility).
For this article to cast Gen Z as proponents of selling out while not offering a holistic voice to the entire student body is incomplete.
Eli Boshara
St. Louis
Gun Trafficking to Mexico
To the Editor:
Re “Claudia Sheinbaum Has a Daunting Job,” by Ioan Grillo (Opinion guest essay, June 5):
One of Claudia Sheinbaum’s most daunting tasks as Mexico’s president-elect is to reduce the violence of drug cartels powered by guns, most of which come from the U.S.
Our weak national and border-state gun laws facilitate this. Nationally and in most states, no background check is required for gun sales at gun shows by private sellers. Moreover, they have no assault weapons ban, no waiting period, no limit on the number of handgun purchases.
Many of the Mexican immigrants to the U.S. are fleeing across the border to escape gun violence because our nation’s gun policy is riddled with loopholes that help U.S. gun makers and gun dealers sell guns to people who traffic them into Mexico.
We should improve our gun laws to ease our immigration problem and to help President-elect Sheinbaum mitigate the gun violence in Mexico.
Griffin Dix
Kensington, Calif.
The writer is the author of “Who Killed Kenzo? The Loss of a Son and the Ongoing Battle for Gun Safety.”
A Strong Leader
To the Editor:
Re “We Haven’t Hit Peak Populism Yet,” by David Brooks (column, May 24):
The Ipsos report cited by Mr. Brooks showed worldwide pessimism: The country is in decline, the system is broken, “the political and economic elite don’t care about hard-working people.” But the solution favored by a majority in its survey — “a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful” — is counterproductive, especially if that strongman is rich and powerful himself and has a track record of lowering taxes on the rich. Would you trust an arsonist to put out a fire?
What we do need is a leader who will institute policies to level the economic playing field so that all of its players (not only the rich and powerful) have a fair shot at the goal. Policies such as keeping predatory capitalists from running the marketplace by enforcing the antitrust laws, and encouraging the growth of unions to balance the power of capital, spur a reduction of income inequality and strengthen the middle class. President Biden’s administration has been vigorously pursuing these policies.
Also, Mr. Biden has promoted policies that have created thousands of well-paying jobs that do not require a college education. In his first term, the president has shown himself to be a leader who strives to ensure that hard-working Americans can access their fair share of economic rewards. Let’s allow him to continue leveling the economic playing field by granting him a second term.
If you crave endless entertainment, vote for his opponent this November. But if you want results, vote for Joe Biden.
Linda S. Lodenkamper
Denver
Joe Biden’s Tall Tales, and Mine
In my own recollections, I find that, 40 years later, I am a much better footballer now than I ever was when I actually played.
The words of a wise professor of mine at the University of London often resonate with me: “Nostalgia and amnesia are bedfellows!”
Enda Cullen
Armagh, Northern Ireland
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