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.
“I think career is something that you are happy doing; a job, some people don’t like the job but they do it for the money and they need to do it. Career is something that you are happy doing and probably set for life because a career is something that obviously pays good. It is not just a job. They call it a career for a reason.”
[What “work” brings to mind] “I pretty much relate [job and work]. Like if this, if work wasn’t an option, I would put work under job. So going off a little…she say, I think career and job are two different things in my eyes. A job is something you got to do. To me, career is something you want to do.”
“Job and work feel similar in the fact that you get paid to do them.”
“Super interesting or easy.”
“I feel that job is still negative because like I’m slaving away making somebody else, [I’m] here trying to make myself rich. You know what I’m saying? Guaranteed they’ll raise minimum wage, but then the cost of living got to raise up to go along with that. So like I feel like work and career is like, you know, they interchangeable to me because they both positive. My work is my career. My career is my work. You know, just like people, be like, you know, this is my life’s work right here. Or you know what I’m saying? But I…the word job just, you know, just like, well, it’s time to go back to the job.”
“High turnover, labor, tedium, paying bills, temporary, overworked, and underpaid.”
“Just nobody in my life has a degree in my family, I don’t think, yeah.”
“My parents are a huge support. They just want what is best for me. They are like if you want to do this. Sometimes my mom is a little overbearing and pressuring like when are you going to be back in school? That is not helpful, but for the most part they are supportive.”
“For gender I put freak. For race I put American but with Latin spices. And for ethnicity I put Hispanic and proud. Religion, I put Catholic. And the rest I put Chicano. I took a college course for my high school and it was Chicano studies. That is where it came from. I started learning more and more about my culture, and I was like I actually like this. I actually made a movie on how the Chicano movement started from Caesar Chavez to stuff that has been happening recently…I feel they are all the same thing, but I still put them because I am proud to be Hispanic. I am proud to be Mexican. There are some people that are like whitewash, but I respect people who are that. If you are like that, I let you be. I am just proud to be who I am. My parents grew me up. Every December 12 going to church to celebrate the Virgin Mary. At 2 in the morning, are we going to church? They grew me up [Spanish]. It is like 5 in the morning. I’m all tired…I can’t say all Mexicans go to church in the morning, because there are some who go in the night. There are some who go in the middle of the day.”
“[At age 45,] Almost ending it. At 50 I don’t want to be an old, grumpy teacher.”