Молодежь в современном мире

At first sight youth seems to be a very romantic notion: a period when a person is beautiful and strong, when he is full of hopes and dreams, the time when everything seems to be possible & all the doors are open. But in reality it’s a difficult period of transition from childhood passing teen age to adulthood, it is common for all young people in the world no matter where they live: in Russia, in GB, in the USA, in France, etc. It’s time when a person looks into himself trying to understand who he is, what he likes, what he wants in this life, where he wants to go – he asks himself all these simple & in the same time complicated questions. It’s also a period when a young man tries to integrate himself into adult society. Solving varies problems that he encounters on his way, he learns to be independent, to make his own choice & take responsibilities for it.

One of the questions that we all come upon at the age of 16 or 17 is the choice of profession. This choice is crucial as it makes an impact on our future life so it’s better not to make a blunder. The truth is that at that tender age it may be rather difficult to understand what you really want to do especially if you don’t feel any vocation. There are several factors that psychologists advise to take into consideration while choosing a future profession. First of all a young man should try to understand what he likes to do, what he has an inclination for as the future occupation must be interesting to him– this is a factor of great importance. Then he should try to estimate but not overestimate his abilities. Every profession requires certain qualities so if a young man has no logic, it’s absolutely useless for him to become a physicist. Thirdly it’s necessary to take into account individual features of character – that means that if a person is timid, he’d better choose some occupation that doesn’t involve great number of social contacts.

The question of choosing a profession is firmly connected with choosing an educational establishment. The attitude towards higher education in Russia was changing considerably over last 15 years. In the beginning of the 90-ies the main purpose of students was just to get a diploma, as universities didn’t give them the knowledge that they needed for future job placement. After graduating, many students had to study more or even change their qualification. In the second part of the 90-ies it was financial motives that pushed young people into universities: everybody searched for brilliant career & success in life so at that time economic, finance & law universities were extremely popular. Last year the greatest competition was registered in international & linguistic universities – this can be explained by the fact that now young people have possibilities to get education abroad. Still the most popular, prestigious & paying professions are those of a lawyer & an economist. These days while choosing a profession young people try to combine different factors & choose an occupation that will let them display their individuality, develop their abilities & earn good money J)

Now I’d like to talk about moral portrait of modern young people. There’s a general impression that modern youth is less educated, less civilized, insolent, spoiled, too concentrated on material values. Probably this point of view has grounds but I believe that the responsibility for it lies not only with the young themselves but also with the society & the family. If parents don’t inculcate good manners to their children, don’t teach them to behave & to communicate in a polite way with others, what do they expect? Young people go into the streets & often fall under bad influence. Family is the first & probably the most important school in any person’s life as we all are first of all children of our parents. Secondly, we live in the post-revolution period when old values are broken (the formula “first society, then personality” doesn’t work any more) but new values haven’t yet been created so the freedom that everybody wanted so much turned out to be chaos. Thirdly mass media, especially television & glossy magazines, promote the cult of perfect body & beautiful life so no wonder that young people put money on top of their priorities. Maybe it’s not even that bad because young people of today are more pragmatic, they don’t want to put their life on a chance. They realize that to have family & children they need to ensure a fair financial ground. Family is still a priority for young people but the attitude towards family, in particular towards official marriage, has considerably changed. Though young people believe that finding the significant other is extremely important, they do not rush into early marriages so they prefer to live together for some time to put their feelings & personal compatibility to a test. Some people still view this phenomenon as the dissolution of morals but the attitude of the society changes little by little so living together without formal registration becomes a common place.

What is the way of life of modern young people? Most of them study: at school, in universities, in colleges. Some of them work part-time to earn some pocket-money (sometimes they do it to the detriment of studying) because these days entertaining, having fun requires a lot of money. The most popular activities among the young are going to the cinema, to rock & night clubs. Sport seems to have lost the phenomenal success that it used to have some 30 years ago or modern young people choose different kinds of sport like roller-skating or extreme cycling. They read books but their taste differs from the taste of their parents: instead of reading classics they prefer modern writers like Steven King, Richard Bach & Paolo Koelio. Music seems to be the ultimate passion of all young people all over the world & in this sphere the choice is enormous: rock, pop, electronic, metal, etc. Surfing in internet has become an extremely popular way of spending free-time as it gives the possibility of communicate with people all over the world.