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 believe it affords me more opportunities, just as it always has, but I do feel like in the literary world, specifically, there is currently a slight disadvantage when applying for grants, awards, fellowships, etc.”
[Characteristics of a Good Job]: “Money.”
“It just depends on what kind of friend they are, I guess.”
“Right now I put starting with school because I am still in school. I am going to need a shop in a good location because you’ve got Oakland and the things I have to go through is basically getting a work license, apprentice for auto mechanic and become a mechanic and working enough to save up for a shop, getting a license to own a shop. I already know auto mechanics, people who are retired. [I met them] From where I live at. [What’s important to me is] Just moving out of Oakland.”
“So my end goal is a chemical engineering job for a car company.”
“It’s like, oh, it’s like I want to do a lot of things. But it’s just like can I really do it? Because I don’t have like no role models. I don’t have no big sisters. Like I’m adopted. So it’s just like really hard. I don’t have like, oh…you can do this dah, dah, dah. So I got to look at like girls on TV, and like it’s like, but they don’t make it seem easy. Like if it’s like an Instagram video, oh, I’m this. But like how do you do that?”
“[Natural capital is] Knowledge.”
“I think help you because I see that my parents don’t have a career. I want to be better for myself and I see my family and my boyfriend’s family. They have amazing careers. My family doesn’t struggle. They make money; they make decent money, but I want to be in a position where I am going to make amazing money, do whatever I want. My dad works Monday through Saturday. Sunday is his only day off and he is tired, so we don’t go out a lot as a family. My boyfriend’s family on the other hand, they go out all the time as family. We are always doing something, all the time. It is like I see that and I didn’t see that before because when I was living with my boyfriend it was different. Now that I see it, I don’t want to be like my parents, but my parents have always taught me you don’t want to be like us. You want to have an amazing future. You want to do better. You want to give your kids everything. Even though my parents give me everything and they do their best, I don’t want my kids to see me struggle. Oh I lost my job. Yeah, they are just firing people. I want to have a set job. I want to give my kids whatever they need; I am going to pay for their school.”
“Remain humble and remember my past, but don’t forget where I am headed in the future.”
“Co-workers because your always gonna be working with others.”