- Impact of personal attributes and characteristics
- Pathways
“Positive: White/Caucasian, Irish, Christian, west coast, introspective. Negative: down to earth, humorous, off the beaten path.”
Participant:
- Online
- white
- male
- 26-29
- mixed income
Youth Quote Search
Welcome to the Striving to Thriving Youth Quote Library. Here you’ll find a curated collection of more than 5,700 quotes from young people ages 15-22 living in communities across the United States. In the library you can see how young people describe their multifaceted identities, how they understand and apply meaning to language around job, work and career, how they think about and assign value to relationships, networking and connections, and their future goals and the education and career choices they believe will lead them there. You can also view additional notes on curation, categories and filters.
- Comparing and contrasting 'job' 'work' and 'career'
- Understanding Job/Work/Career
“It kind of feels like, despite all being synonyms of each other, they are different kind of levels. Like at the lowest being job, in the middle being work, and at the top being career. Like you define career to be like what you believe, okay, this person is like a doctor. And a job is kind of like, okay, this person works at McDonald’s. They’re both jobs, but one is held above another for some odd reason.”
Participant:
- Chicago, IL
- Black
- male
- 15-22
- higher income
- Aspirations and Goals
- Imagining their future selves
“[At 45] Married, helping the homeless.”
Participant:
- Oakland, CA
- Black
- male
- 15-22
- mixed income
- Comparing and contrasting 'job' 'work' and 'career'
- Understanding Job/Work/Career
“To me a job is something you aspire to, and work is something you have to do to get to, to survive.”
Participant:
- Chicago, IL
- Black
- female
- 26-29
- higher income
- Reflections on Focus Group Experience
- Takeaways
“I like what I told you when I first started. I don’t really know where to start, but I’m going to go. So, yeah, it’s a lot. A lot of people just need guidance and support…I don’t really need all the flashy things people think we need like money and all of that. We really need knowledge, guidance, and support.”
Participant:
- Chicago, IL
- Black
- female
- 26-29
- higher income
- Perceptions of the term 'career'
- Understanding Job/Work/Career
“Excited.”
Participant:
- Online
- Hispanic
- female
- 15-22
- lower income
- Learning About Work
- Trying on professions
“I worked as a technical consultant with Sprint. I knew that it was a dead-end job with no marketable skills I could take with me. I decided to enroll in a bootcamp to learn to code. It felt like I was taking control of my life and future.”
Participant:
- Online
- Black
- male
- 26-29
- mixed income
- Education
- Perceptions of college and postsecondary
“So when I think of career, I think of finishing school—like four-year school or like a Ph.D.—and then after that point, you’re doing that because you enjoy it. So like late nights you’re up working hard because you want to find what you’re looking for not because you have to. And enjoyable because you spent all your life going to school for this, and then you finally get to enjoy what you accomplished.”
Participant:
- Yakima, WA
- Hispanic
- male
- 15-22
- lower income
- Education
- Perceptions of college and postsecondary
“I think it is nice to continue to challenge yourself throughout your whole life because sometimes it happens when you are doing [nothing] for a whole summer, a lot of time I get really antsy but then I am in school and I complain. But I still think it is important to continue to build your knowledge and keep doing that your whole life. I think it is really enriching. People when they retire a lot of the time they don’t know what to do with themselves and they get really depressed and I think that is why. Also it is credentials and getting more opportunities.”
Participant:
- Pasadena, CA
- white
- female
- 15-22
- higher income
- Aspirations and Goals
- Imagining their future selves
[What would keep you from getting to 70?] “A fire.”
Participant:
- New Orleans, LA
- white
- male
- 15-22
- lower income