Friday night consisting of pizza and beer might not sound very exceptional in the life of the average college student. But for the residents of Duke's InCube living community, the college staples are fuel for the entrepreneurial spirit.
"It's kind of a hacker culture just because of a lot of people
are doing technology startups," said Tom Schuhmann, an InCube
resident and a Duke senior. The community consists of campus
apartments connected by a common room and serves as an incubator
for Duke's undergraduate entrepreneurs, all of whom are working on
a startup or are on the hunt for their next project.
"People are up really late in the common room, ordering pizza and
working on the startups," he said. "It's a little nerdy, but we
enjoy it."
When Schuhmann graduates in May, he won't be looking for your
run-of-the-mill job. Neither will many of his cohorts.
This year's crop of college graduates will -- by some accounts --
mark the first entrants of Generation Z into the workplace. And as
the generation trades textbooks and all-nighters for cubicles and
conference calls, states are trying to figure out how to
accommodate this generation's creative tendencies and retain their
brainpower.
"This is a generation that wants to be able to contribute their
ideas to organizations from Day 1," said Anita Brown-Graham,
director of N.C. State's Institute for Emerging Issues. "The notion
of waiting your turn in line is completely foreign to them," she
said. "The workplace will change some of their expectations about
what is reasonable, but it's also true that workplaces are going to
have to find ways to accommodate this generation."
For its purposes, the institute defines the generation as those
born between 1990 and 2002.
The institute hopes to discuss the unique traits of the
generation and what challenges may lie ahead as its members come of
age.
"For the first time, we face a scenario where one generation is
likely to be less well off than their parents' generation on a
number of criteria including earnings, overall quality of life,
health and life expectancy," Brown-Graham said.
Seeing these economic shifts, however, may be yet another
advantage that Generation Z has grown up with, said Andrew Yang,
founder of the Venture for America program. The program places
graduating seniors in the front lines of a startup for two years
with the aim of preparing them to become entrepreneurs.
"The current college student has seen their parents and their
peers trust in large institutions and then sometimes be
disappointed," Yang said. "Organizations that people would not have
thought were the least bit unstable a number of years ago have
proven to be much more volatile.
"This generation is more interested in equipping themselves with
an array of skills that they can trust in than they are in
investing a decade or two with the same company."
Reeling Generation Z into the workplace is one thing.
Accommodating the way they work is an entirely different story,
Brown-Graham said.
"The notion that there are certain times you're working and
certain times off of work is foreign to them," she said. "This is a
generation on a more social level. They're going to want more
flexible work schedules."
Other adjustments employers may have to make is the speed at
which they operate and the drive that motivates Generation Z to do
more.
To adjust to both of these conditions, Goldstein suggests that
companies streamline and reduce bureaucracy.
"Information is flowing way too fast to have a lot of hierarchy,"
he said. "Our students understand that. They don't have time for
it. Flat organizations can process information and make decisions
much faster."
But the last, perhaps best, piece of advice for learning how to
work with Generation Z is given by Gary Alan Miller, an assistant
director at UNC's career services office.
"As I work with students, there's as much difference as there is
commonality," he said. "Any time we're trying to generalize,
there's always going to be a challenge."
