2017 - Spring

The Beat: Covering Millennials

Course Number: JOUR-UA 201.001

Day & Time: Tues 2:00pm-5:40pm

Location: 20 Cooper Square, room 655

Saturday Night kicked off the fall season with “The Millennials,” a parody poking fun at the supposedly self-obsessed, entitled members of “Generation Me.” SNL joined in a common lament: What’s the matter with kids today?

The answer is there’s nothing wrong with the 75 million millennials born between 1981 and 2000. They simply approach life, work, love, friends and family somewhat differently than the older generations.

In “Covering Millennials,” we will explore all those different aspects of millennial life with assignments, readings and speakers. “Emerging adults” have become a hot topic in both the media and academia: Boomerang kids who move back home after graduation, postponing the traditional markers of adulthood, not settling for just any job, wanting work-life balance, spending money on experiences not stuff, looking for love (or a hookup), living online and more.

We will examine these issues and more. You are the millennial so what you report and write about will spring from your own experiences. Yes, the course will be “all about me” and why not? You are now the largest generation.

You will write for the class website http://genyu.net/ and your individual beat blog, and be guided in doing a multimedia final project.

We will also pitch pieces to outside publications. In the past, several class assignments were published including one by a student who went on a “technology diet” and another’s lament about her mother wanting to friend her on Facebook.

Prof. Mary W. Quigley writes a nationally published weekly blog about millennials.