This is the second post in a series regarding the characteristics of Millennials. In part one, I discussed the first two characteristics that I have learned about this group: that they are confident and team-oriented. In this post I would like to discuss two other characteristics: that they are achievement oriented and conventional.
They’re Achievement Oriented
Quite frankly, I don’t know if law professors will see a significance difference in this characteristic than in previous generations (although, being a younger professor, I have no personal point of reference). My understanding of the typical personality type that attends law school is that they have classic Type A attributes: they are achievement oriented, always prepared, and typically used to succeeding.
Research I have seen on this supports that idea. For instance Susan Daicoff, a Professor of Law, writes extensively on the personality traits of lawyers and law students. In a 1997 article entitled “Articles Lawyer , Know Thyself : A Review of Empirical Research on Attorney Attributes Bearing on Professionalism,” she discusses the findings from studies regarding the attributes of lawyers at various stages: before they enter law school (from early childhood through college); during law school and after they graduate. In summarizing the findings regarding law students Prof. Daicoff writes “the research … suggests, although with some expected gender differences, that law students are motivated by achievement rather than altruism.” For me, the most interesting aspect of Prof. Daicoff’s piece is its publication date – 1997. That year is significant for me because it’s the year I graduated from law school. As such, it seems that this particular aspect of the law student’s personality is consistent with previous generations.
The anomaly then might be in comparing law students to non-law students. What could be happening is that, while law students’ achievement orientation is remaining constant, the achievement oriented nature of the general millennial population has risen to a comparable level.
I would love for both law and non-law faculty who have been teaching for a number of years to chime in on this. In particular, I would like to know if either group has seen a change in how ambitious these latest crops of students are compared to previous years.
They’re Conventional
My understanding from Grace is that by conventional, these groups of students are generally more conservative than previous generations. Certainly, compared to those who attended law school in the 1960s, there must be a significant difference in the political leanings and civil rights activism - I have heard of no sit-ins at law schools in the last few years.
Personally, hearing that this generation is conservative sheds some light on the type of class that I teach and the resistance that I have encountered in my two years of teaching this course. As I mentioned in a previous post, the classes that I teach are mainly business courses: business organizations; securities regulation; international business transactions and a corporate governance seminar. Although I had anticipated that many of my students would have a business focus and thus, could be characterized as more conventional (as compared to, say students enrolled in a human rights class), I had thought that the specter of the bar examination would draw in otherwise left-leaning students who needed a crash course on these issues before taking the exam.
For me, there is no contradiction between having a strong business foundation and a more progressive, civil rights based mindset. However, I was surprised to discover that most of my students (even the ones with no interest in business) were by far more conventional. The most obvious example of this was when I showed my students the movie The Corporation. The movie is a documentary with a clear bias – its basic premise is that many of the characteristics of the modern publicly traded corporation are similar to those of a psychopath. It is based on a book by Joel Bakan that seems thoroughly researched but is no less provocative.
I present the movie in my class, not because I agree whole-heartedly with everything the movie says (I don’t), but because I believe that it’s a good way to stimulate paideia – getting students to question the idea of what a corporation is for. For instance, is a corporation simply there to generate earnings for its shareholders (as we learn in the black letter law)? Or are there other stakeholders that we should consider? Why or why not?
I imagined that this movie would engender a lively debate among my students. Instead, my students have, by and large, reacted very negatively to the ideas contained in the movie. Instead of a lively debate, I am often met with disdain for the idea that a corporation should be anything but a profit making machine. I wonder if I have presented this movie a decade ago whether it would garner the same response.
Of course, any attempt to extricate general attributes from such a large and diverse population is always fraught with peril; the idea of distilling the essence of a generation seems to me an enormous empirical challenge. Nonetheless, the findings are significant. Being able to understand the type of students that I am teaching, even at a superficial level, can help me (I hope) to be a better teacher, one who can understand her audience and tailor her teaching methods accordingly. Many good teachers do no less now when they tailor their teaching style to the various ways that people learn. Doing so on a generational level would allow for additional means of reaching them.
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