High Standards Headed for Harvard

In today's day and age, most kids are forced- no trained to start thinking about college since potty training. And taught that if you don't look like people in the magazines, you're hideous. That's the way it is.

And if you want to get into an ivy league, which you probably do since it's what we're brainwashed into wanting, you have to work and work and work so hard you have no life. Which is fine, if you're forty. But us, us gen Y kids we're still going through the process of becoming adults and figuring out exactly who we are.

In the midst of puberty, and trying to have a good time, we're forced to think about colleges and behaving appropriately and "How many A.P. courses do I need to take to get into..." and it's all too much, leaving many of us feeling under-appreciated and overwhelmed. A "B" average, once considered good - for many of us who want to go to any ivy-league just doesn't cut it.

And it's this mentality, being enforced upon us by the previous Gen-Xers, & Baby boomers that is screwing us over.

More than ever, we are seeing higher trends in teens with anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and worst of all - higher teen suicide rates.

I'm afraid, that if we continue to be a nation of such high standards these trends will continue to rise.

Suddenly, if you don't go to an Ivy League you're just not good enough. And I'm sure, that these Ivy Leagues are definitely not going to see any sign of a recession any time soon if we continue with this mindset. Going to an Ivy League, is fine, if you're naturally just that smart and have total ease in higher level thinking. But when it comes down to it, most of us DON'T. And that's the reality of it. And that's fine.

Not all of us are going to be CEO's or world leaders. Some of us are going to be workers, factory workers, garbage men, post men, DMV workers, teachers. But that's what we need. I can promise you, that though we may not always have the need for CEO's, more politicians, lawyers, doctors, we will always have the need for the common worker. The people who make sure things happen when they need to.

These are the people that make the way we live in the U.S. possible, and by far some of the most important in the working class. But if we continue to baby-feed that you're only O.K., that you're only worth something if you go to an IVY, then this working class will surely retreat, and dissipate soon.

Now, I'm not speaking strictly of the high standards of schooling. Look around next time you go out, look at the magazines, the movies, the billboard ads. Most of the people occupying the space of these things are beautiful. They're in the high end of the gene pool. If you don't look like them, you're hideous and should do us all a favor and try to make yourself look like them.

Sure, you laugh and scoff at these ideals, this mindset now, but come tomorrow you'll still continue to crawl up the ladder, to buy whatever you need to look like your favorite celebrity, to spoon feed your peers, you're children that you're only alright if you get into a good school, and get a good job with a great starting salary.

It's when and once this becomes the norm that will people truly acknowledge a problem. For now, I'm afraid this trend of teen suicide, anxiety & eating disorders will have to continue to rise for people to acknowledge the problem

So for now I leave you with this,
Is it realistic to enforce such high standards upon our youth?