- Characterizations of a good job
- Understanding Job/Work/Career
“Like how many vacation days you get.”
Participant:
- Baltimore, MD
- Black
- male
- 15-22
- higher 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.
- Aspirations and Goals
- Imagining their future selves
[At 70] “I would have invested in a couple of stocks, and, hopefully, those stocks did good…advancement. Like they’re saying, accomplish…look back at everything I did; make sure everything I did was right, pave…for my future generation, stuff like that.”
Participant:
- Baltimore, MD
- Black
- male
- 15-22
- higher income
- Challenges and Barriers
- Lack of skills and competition
“That I will never make the kind of money I think I deserve. It is not a job with a strong monetary return.”
Participant:
- Online
- Hispanic
- female
- 26-29
- mixed income
- Perceptions of the term 'career'
- Understanding Job/Work/Career
“Consistency.”
Participant:
- Online
- Hispanic
- female
- 15-22
- lower income
- Perceptions of the term 'work'
- Understanding Job/Work/Career
“Drama.”
Participant:
- Online
- Hispanic
- male
- 26-29
- mixed income
- Characterizations of a good job
- Understanding Job/Work/Career
“[A career has] way better benefits…more than what like Domino’s or McDonald’s, I guess.”
Participant:
- Yakima, WA
- white
- male
- 15-22
- lower income
- Characterizations of a bad job
- Understanding Job/Work/Career
“So I used to wash dishes at a restaurant. And I used to work night shifts, and I wouldn’t get out until I finished washing the dishes…Well, it was pretty bad because I never got good at it. So I’d always stay until like half-past midnight or 1:00 in the morning, yeah.”
Participant:
- Yakima, WA
- Hispanic
- male
- 15-22
- lower income
- Pathways
- Steps and stages
“Teaching…I just started all of this but I took a break. This is where I am today because I took a break. Then I tried to go back, but I struggled at home and I had to get a job, focus on school. I started substituting in the end of May this year. I want to do high school. I love little kids. They are sweethearts. I do want to go back to college and then be more focused and more determined… hopefully to teach.”
Participant:
- Belle Glade, FL
- Hispanic
- female
- 15-22
- lower income
- Reflections on Focus Group Experience
- Takeaways
“Getting advice from each other [was helpful]. It is basically stay on the right path and don’t get distracted. Right now it seems like a long way, but in the long run if you do stay on the right path, you will get there. That is what I think. That is what I got from that.”
Participant:
- Oakland, CA
- Black
- male
- 15-22
- mixed income
- Comparing and contrasting 'job' 'work' and 'career'
- Understanding Job/Work/Career
“McDonald’s for job. It’s just, I don’t know, because at school they had told us a job is like something that you just holding for that moment. It’s like not a career. So I thought of McDonald’s…Well, they said that a job is like an occupation for that moment. It’s not something that…It’s not a career. It’s like something just getting you money for that moment.”
Participant:
- Greenville, MS
- Black
- female
- 15-22
- lower income