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.
[A job] “Social, something you love dearly, money, every day and an office. When you are in a job you have to be social with the customers and essentially with your coworkers. To get along with your coworkers you have to be social; you have to ask questions. I actually like it. I love talking. I like getting to know new people and getting to hear their stories.”
“[I want to become a nurse]. I would have to finish at least 2 years of college; work a part-time job to help pay for college and gas, car, insurance to get there. I have to finish my clinicals at a hospital. I have to study and prepare for the exam to become a registered nurse. [This path is going to be] hard. Financially. Sometimes for school I won’t want to go and I have to tell myself you’ve got to go. This is what is going to help you achieve your end goal. I worked at Walmart because my mom was like it is better to make money now instead of going to college and wasting money. Then that pressured me to work even before going to school. That is just how they think here. Family might [make pursuit of my goal difficult]. My mom and dad financially will help me. I know that. Then advisor at the college…I finished my first semester. I took a step forward, so that is really good for me. Sometimes I feel like oh you can’t do that. You are not smart enough. You won’t be able to do this. I just think about it .. but then I get over it and I am like you can do it. You are smart. My family tells me I am smart, but sometimes you don’t believe them. I just think to myself you are smart; you can do this. It is going to be hard, but you have to just push forward and know that everything you do now is going to lead you to that nursing license at the end. There is a quote that I always go by. If there is a way there is a will. I go by that every day. Whenever I have a problem, I can get out of this. I can get through it. People have given me a lot of money to go to school, and if I don’t go to my classes or I don’t pass them, it is a waste of money.”
“Work only ‘works’ if the job does. If a job makes an employee or person miserable, it will effect their work negatively.”
“Some joined Greek like (frats and sororities) or did study abroad or found the love of their life while attending college! The talk about how the people on their campus and different events that were held shaped their love for their school.”
“Yeah I have to be good in math. Right now I’m already in high school, so my next step would be over the summer I plan to get a job or an internship or something and that can help me get better in math and numbers and stuff like that. Then the next step is college and then going to medical school. After that I will still be studying but I will be studying more and still in medical school. Then I will be out of medical school and then starting an internship in a hospital. You have to do that after medical school. Then after the internship I will be — I forget what it is called but I know after internship you actually start working. After that I feel like I will be the highest. I want to be like the most, so people call me from out of state just so I can do their surgery and stuff like that.”
“Persistent. I have had to be persistent in endeavors since most things worth having never come easily.”
“[Maturity] “I mean, if you have a job, pretty much you got to have responsibility and stuff, and like you got…for me, where I work at, like I play…basketball. So my coach runs his own business. So like, basically, like me and my friend, so, technically, we can work whenever. So like we basically work around our basketball schedule. So like when I don’t have work, I can go work.”
“I feel they are all positive.”
“Just getting to connect to different people with different backgrounds. Also, the social aspect to it.”
[At 25] “Okay. So, I told my mom I was going to move out at 26. So, I’m going to still be with my mom. I’ll be in school training to be an esthetician if I said that correctly. I don’t think I did and also a phlebotomist because I want to be that, too. I’m sure I’m going to be working; I just don’t know where because I change my mind a lot. I don’t have a set place that I want to work before I get to my career. And I think that’s pretty much it. Hopefully, I’ll be more friendly and have friends…I’m going to live here but afterwards, I’m not staying here. I can’t stand it here [in Baltimore] because it’s just the same thing every day. It’s boring.”