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Essays About Youth: Top 5 Essay Examples Plus 10 Prompts

Discover our guide with creative writing prompts and examples for essays about youth to help you get started on your next great essay!

Youth is that cusp between childhood and adulthood — a period filled with zest, adventure, and impulsiveness. Our future depends on the youth of today. As such, we are well-advised to equip ourselves with sufficient skills and knowledge to resolve future problems effectively. We must also train them to develop a moral compass, incredible determination, and deep compassion for others to serve well as future leaders.

5 Essay Examples

1. youth in revolt: five powerful movements fueled by young activist by erin blakemore, 2. what you can learn from a young ceo by elaine pofeldt, 3. advice to the youth by mark twain , 4. us youth are in a mental health crisis—we must invest in their care by mitchell j. prinstein, 5. young people are leaving their jobs in record numbers—and not going back by raisa bruner, 1. effects of social media on youth self-esteem, 2. youth’s learning crisis, 3. addressing youth obesity, 4. encouraging stem careers for youth, 5. engaging youth in community building, 6. why youth engage in cybercrime, 7. love for today’s youth, 8. national youth day, 9. substance abuse prevention for youth , 10. benefits of sex education to youth.

“Youth who participated in the civil rights movement embraced what one-time SNCC chairman Representative John Lewis called “good trouble”—fearless agitation designed to provoke, challenge, and move progress forward.”

Youth have always driven impactful social and political movements in whatever era and whichever part of the globe they are. This essay recounts some of history’s most powerful and meaningful protests mobilized by youth. Check out these essays about life lessons .

“Whether we needed to select a blogging platform or figure out how to keep costs down, we invariably found that younger CEOs were great sources of ideas.”

Gone are the days when one would purely seek older people for wisdom in business. With the competition in the digital age, youth are proving to bring in a wealth of ideas that can effectively support business strategies.

“Build your character thoughtfully and painstakingly upon these precepts, and by and by, when you have got it built, you will be surprised and gratified to see how nicely and sharply it resembles everybody else’s. ”

The American writer shows his humor and sarcasm by teaching youth the art of lying and handling firearms carelessly. Ultimately, he tells those who would succeed that they would be no different than the rest of society. 

“We have an opportunity to make a serious commitment to youth mental health, just as we did 70 years ago to help adults. This is a chance for parents, teachers, and youth to stop whispering about their mental health needs and begin shouting for our country to invest in its future and end our children’s suffering.”

As youth suicides have increased over the years, data shows that it is now the second leading cause of death among 10- to 24-year-olds. The situation demands urgent action and a rethink of the overall mental health system.

“For some, it’s burnout. For others, the timing was ripe to refocus on side projects as the stresses of the pandemic started to wane. And for many, especially in a service sector dominated by “zillennials”… poor treatment and low wages became unsustainable.”

The pandemic burnout has driven the Great Resignation among youth, leaving over 10 million jobs in the US unoccupied. This triggers a sea change in the societal landscape, where young workers pursue their self-worth and can afford to do so.

10 Thought-Provoking Prompts On Essays About Youth

Essays About Youth: Effects of social media on youth self-esteem

While we all tend to compare our qualities and achievements to those of others, social media has made this habit worse. To youth, the biggest market of social media platforms, this has resulted in lower self-esteem, especially for girls . In your essay, gather present research that studies the links between social media use and low confidence levels. Then, recommend ways for young readers to spend more time in the real world and rebuild their self-esteem.

In recent years, it has been recognized that the world is facing a learning crisis that even the wealthier G20 countries are not exempt from . But as the COVID-19 pandemic has halted face-to-face school interactions for prolonged periods, what does the future of education and skills-building look like for our youth? Answer this with the support of research studies and data, and surveys from reputed organizations and agencies. Finally, enumerate the best ways to invest in our youth’s education.

Many cases of obesity among youth are due to the lack of exercise. For this topic prompt, lay down the negative effects of obesity, such as the increased likelihood of diabetes, hypertension, lack of self-esteem, and depression. Then, with research on wellness experts’ advice, encourage readers to change their lifestyle one step at a time to address or prevent obesity. For example, walking for 10 minutes to take a break from work could be a powerful start in changing a routine. 

No industry gains as much from youth’s ingenuity as the innovation industry. First, elaborate on the importance of developing youth’s scientific and technical skills. Then, look at how schools incorporate science, technology, engineering, and math into the curriculum, starting with your school. To conclude your essay, look at how intensive your government’s programs are in unlocking the inner scientists of today’s youth. 

Essays About Youth: Engaging youth in community building

Youth have the vigor and passion for changing the world. Because of this, they are one of the best groups to tap into for building a better community. To start this essay, look at the ratio of young volunteers to the total number of volunteers in your community. You can check this ratio in other communities and see how active your youth are in volunteer community work compared to others. Then, enumerate interesting practices cities can adopt to attract youth to participate in their programs. 

The United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency has reported a 107% annual increase in police reports of young students engaging in cyberattacks in 2020. Dig deeper into this report and find out the main motivations why young offenders would join the dark side in cyberspace. Is it for the millions of bucks or the sense of validation in the hacking community? Then identify some best practices law enforcement authorities and schools are implementing to thwart cybercrime among youth.

Young love has always been defined by its wild passions and adventures. Does this hold today in this digital age? How have relationships evolved in the age of social media? Mull over these questions and look at other modern trends in young love. For example, many claims that internet relationships, where couples meet and interact purely online, constitute true love. 

Celebrated every August 12, International Youth Day (IYD) aims to raise awareness of youth’s pressing challenges. Your essay can revolve around the focus of the last or upcoming celebration theme. Then, reflect on the issue’s relevance and what actions you think society can take to ease the problem. For example, the 2022 IYD is themed “Intergenerational Solidarity: Creating a World for All Ages.” This expounds on fostering solidarity across generations to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prevention is always better than cure. In this essay, search for data on youths reportedly battling drug abuse. Highlight an upward trend, if any. Then, highlight the risk factors that lead youth to drug or alcohol abuse and the consequences on health and overall well-being. You may also pay attention to the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s 16 key principles for determining the most suitable prevention programs. 

A research study has found that aside from preventing early pregnancy and the contraction of sexually transmitted diseases, comprehensive sex education helps youth feel safe and achieve success in the long term. Examine these benefits and cite the negative effects of a lack of sex education during youth. Finally, it underscores schools’ critical roles in integrating sex education and protecting students. 

If you need further guidance, check out our essay writing tips . Finally, don’t forget to proofread your essay using the best grammar checkers .

my youth essay

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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Essay on Youth for Students and Children

500+ words essay on youth.

Youth is a worthwhile phase of one’s life. The age where the age group is no longer of a child but yet to turn out to be a grown-up is the youth age. It is an age recognized by traits of heroism, toughness, muscle, stimulation, curiosity, judgmental attitude and even much more. At this stage, even though driven by fantasy or freedom and the power to choose his or her response, all must be cautiously exercised. It is a golden phase to accomplish the dual goals of intelligence and character.

essay on youth

A Period of Stress & Strain, Storm & Strife

Youth, in the present era, is a powerful asset of the nation possessing the abundant energy and the zeal considered necessary for the overall advancement of the same. Youth is a critical age of development, a period of uncertainty when everything is in ferment.

As a Youth is neither a child nor an adult, the personality possesses a mixture of both stages. He can be selfish at some times or turn out to be selfless the very next day. He may also turn out to be rebellious one day.

Youth develops a revolting personality and thus we can see conflicts in opinions between the family. It is also a major cause of worsening of family relations. Youth, being argumentative in nature, develop an attitude of apt rationale and judgment.

Thus, it denies accepting as true in anything without an appropriate cause following the same. It is not that there is no lack of moral awakening or his total refusal to adhere to ethical and moral standards. It is merely that he wants his every question to be answered and having his quest fulfilled, he accepts the same.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

How to channelize Youth Power in the right direction?

Youth is full of strength and intellectual capability, which if properly utilized could assist in turning the invisible into visible, the hardships to triumph and the hard work to success thus leading to the overall growth of an individual and the nation at large.

Following measures must be adapted to turn the youth into prolific individuals:

  • Understanding child psychology by the parents at this stage.
  • Proper guidance by the teachers
  • Practical representation of best ideals and values to foster moral education in the schools. Sex education is a must for better emotional development.
  • Minimizing the habit of excessive control and strict discipline so as to promote the expression of emotions, thus leading to suitable mental development.
  • The organization of extra-curricular activities to channelize the imagination in youth towards creative activities.
  • Preparing the youth for the cause of society by entrusting the responsibility so as to develop a feeling of responsibility in them.
  • A right and rationale attitude towards democracy should be developed in the surroundings. This would lead to develop the philosophy of life.

  Conclusion

Youth is the golden period to cherish a big dream full of passion and energy. Although, the period is also full of adventures yet they have to be looked for with the eyes open. It is the time when we can provide shape to our ideas for the economic development of society. By encouraging to take an active part in the dramas, projects, sports and others are pretty good ways to control excessive fantasy. Also, it is the time to move towards the destination which can be made possible through vocational awareness and critical study of individual differences.

Mixed with responsibility and fun, new environs, excitement, thrill, applauses, and regrets, it has a huge significance in one’s life. It is time to achieve wisdom in addition to knowledge.

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348 Youth Essay Topics & Examples

Looking for youth essay topics? The field is exciting and worth writing about!

🔝 Top 10 Research Topics on Youth Issues

🏆 best youth essay examples, 🔎 argumentative essay topics about youth, ✅ simple & easy youth essay titles, 🥇 youth culture research topics, 📑 good research topics about youth, 📌 most interesting youth topics to write about, ❓ research questions about youth.

In your paper, you might want to focus on important youth issues, such as study problems, physical development, and mental health. Other options include analysing some sociological aspects of youth, exploring youth crime, and focusing on youth culture. In this article, we’ve gathered best research topics on youth issues: argumentative essay topics about youth, youth culture research topics, etc. We’ve also added excellent youth essay examples to inspire you even more!

  • How does one’s youth affect their future?
  • Youth: rights and limitations
  • The youth physical development model
  • Legal drinking age in different countries
  • Student rights in higher education
  • Youth mortality: causes and effects
  • Adolescent obesity: how to prevent?
  • Young marriages in developing countries
  • Youth and political participation worldwide
  • Minimum age for employment in the US: should it be changed?
  • Youth Crime as a Major Issue in the World The relationships that exist in the families of the youths could facilitate the indulgence in criminal activities for example when the parents are involved in crime, when there is poor parental guidance and supervision, in […]
  • Empowering Youth Engagement in Society If young people in a given society are not actively involved in important activities in the society they can be destructive and thus negative change in the society. This can be achieved by engaging and […]
  • The Main Causes of Youth Violence Access to Guns and the Influence of the Media Shooting is one of the most common forms of youth violence, and guns are the primary weapons of perpetrators.
  • Youth Issues and Adult Society In most countries, the age of the youth is drawn at the time when an individual is treated equally under the law, normally referred to as the age of majority.
  • Youth Unemployment as a Social Issue Different factors have led to the high levels of youth unemployment, with the most widely studied of them being the skills that are available to the unemployed youths.
  • The Effect of Social Media on Today’s Youth This theory is useful in the explanation of the impact of media during crisis, and will also be useful in the analysis of the impact of social media on the youth of the UAE.
  • Modern Technologies and Their Impact on Youth This study presents an analysis of the impacts of the modern technology on the communication skills, personalities and social behaviors of the youth in the technological context that characterizes the network society.
  • “Anthem for Doomed Youth” by Wilfred Owen Literature Analysis The events of the past still haunt some of the countries, the relics of the war are still being found in the places of former battlefields, the veterans are being honored and the films about […]
  • Youth Unemployment and Policy Solutions The inability to address the problem of unemployment in the given age group may result in the growth of criminal activity, child poverty, and people’s negative perceptions of life.
  • Solutions to Effects of Excessive Internet Use on Youth The education system and parents have a major role in the effort to reduce excessive use of the internet among the youth.
  • Media Portrayal of Youth in Australia The portrayal of youth’s participation in society is a critical factor given the significant role of media in shaping the social concept of youth and the capabilities of young people.
  • Youth-Led NGOs in Brunei Darussalam Within the past three decades, the youth in Brunei Darussalam has been on the frontline to identify the trends recorded in different parts of the world in an attempt to implement similar practices in the […]
  • The Technology Influence on Youth This paper examines some of the main effects of new technologies on adolescents and young people, including deterioration of the physical and mental condition, increased risk of becoming a victim of a fraudster, and the […]
  • The National Youth Service Corps Schemes in Nigeria Agumagu, Adesope and Njoku note that the core objective of the scheme is to instill in the Nigerian youth “the spirit of selfless service to the community, and emphasize the spirit of oneness and brotherhood […]
  • Youth Crime According to Conflict Theory The second one is that the youth might engage in criminal activities and violence due to misappropriation of resources, lack of jobs, and inadequate strategies to meet their social needs.
  • Youth Crime in Functionalism and Conflict Theories The analysis will focus on determining factors contributing to youth engagement in criminal acts, examining the types of delinquencies they are likely to commit, and establishing the socio-psychological facets associated with the teenagers in the […]
  • Korean Pop Music and Youth Identity Korean pop music has become a powerful genre that connects many youths to their counterparts in different parts of the world.
  • Media Violence Effect on Youth and Its Regulation It is also important to note that the more important the media puts on violence, the more people are tempted to engage in it for the sake of attention.
  • Contemporary Issues Facing the Youth The paper addresses the issues affecting the youth of today with specific reference to unemployment and health. Solutions: Provision of financial relief to unemployed in the form of Unemployment Insurance System/ Entrepreneurial programs in […]
  • Youth Culture and Globalization The focus is also on the relations that exist between the youth and the society, as well as the factors that shape youths identity in terms of culture.
  • The Influence of Peer Groups on Youth Crime The impact of youth crime on the community is profound, and so is the influence of criminal behavior on the lives of adolescents.
  • Perception of Childhood and Youth Through History The advent of industrialization led to the employment of many young people. The aristocracy and the bourgeoisies took their children to schools as part of the transition into adulthood.
  • Social Networks and Youth Empowerment The increasing use of the sites has made them good places to train and advertise for various youth programs and activities; ministries of youth have realized the new way of approaching the young and they […]
  • Kids and Youth Homelessness: Facts and Statistics in the United States There have been numerous government interventions in the form of policies since the times of the Great Depression, but the number of homeless children and teenagers has only increased.
  • This Is Our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan The exploration of the difficulties that occur during the transition from adolescence to adulthood is the key message of the play.
  • Youth Misbehavior: School and Community Risk Factors The following paper analyzes school- and community-related factors that contribute and sustain adverse behavioral patterns assesses the influence of diversity and multicultural issues that may impact the success of interventions, and explores several possible ways […]
  • Social Movements and Youth Activism Research done by Earl unveils that, it is vital to guarantee that young people are actively involved in social movements, and activities in order to encourage active citizenship and build programs that effectively represent their […]
  • Youth Leadership Development However, the exclusion of certain groups of people from the democratic process does not contribute to the flourishment of a system that hinges on the belief that “the operation and ownership of power” are essential […]
  • Amitai Etzioni: Youth Issues in “Working at McDonald’s” The article, ‘Working at McDonald’s’ by Amitai Etzioni explores the effect of the McDonald’s on students with reference to their studies. The author is against McDonald’s part-time jobs because they do not help the students […]
  • Unhealthy Lifestyle Among the Singapore Youth The purpose of this report was to identify the reason for the continued unhealthy lifestyle among the Singapore youth despite the government’s efforts to promote healthier diets and lifestyles and find viable solutions to the […]
  • Western Films Influence on Youth However, there is a concern that its contents may have negative implications on teenagers in the developing countries because of the fundamental differences between the environment presented in the films and what they have in […]
  • Rachel’s Challenges and Its Benefits to the Youth. Columbine School Shooting If told in the right context, tone and by a person who really understands the predicament, Rachel’s challenges are bound to have a profound effect on students and inspire them to spread the dream that […]
  • Relationship Between Caregivers and Behavior of Youth The purpose of the study is to evaluate how youths and caregivers perceive their relationships relative to the occurrence of externalizing and internalizing behaviors.
  • Factors Affecting Youth’s Behaviors Towards Purchasing a Smartphone Objectives Understand the background of the smartphone industry Analyze the smartphone market trends and the role played by the youths in this marekts Understand reasons why youths buy smartphones through a survey on 100 people […]
  • “Friend of My Youth” by Alice Munro The narrator’s attempts to portray her mother as an active member of the community and tell the story through her eyes indicate a close connection between her and the storyteller.
  • Youth Sports: Negative Effects This type of social exclusion can be ascribed not only to the negative impact of youth sports but also to the inefficiency of educators.
  • Ajyal Film Festival and Youth Empowerment The DFI organizes the Ajyal Film Festival to present the film products of its most talented young actors and producers to the government and the business community, as well as the rest of the world.
  • How Social Factors Shape Youth Subcultures In most cases, a subculture is in opposition to the dominant culture and the members of a subculture belong to a specific category such as the youth who seek recognition through unique behavior that is […]
  • Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence? The violence and aggression that stains the youth of today, as a result of these video games, is unquestionably a cancer that ought to be uprooted or at least contained by parents, school leaders, governments […]
  • Youths’ Career Choices in Individualist and Collectivist Societies To study the influence of the different types of societies on young adults’ career aspirations, it is important to establish the distinct features of individualistic and collectivistic approaches to the issue.
  • Sculpture of Victorious Youth The sculpture of the victorious youth is made of bronze and was discovered in the year 1964 in the Adriatic Sea.
  • Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “Anthem for Doomed Youth” The title is, in itself, ironic, for anthems have always meant to sing praises about grand things like love and patriotism, and so at first glance the poem seems to praise the damnation of the […]
  • Youth and Maturity as Stages in Human Life They have the right to fight for there fundamental rights for they are mature and they can be in a position to take care of themselves.
  • Youth Sports and Its Role in Character Formation Based on that, a survey helping to assess young people’s perceptions of the connection between aspects of character formation and youth sports will be created.
  • Tourism and Leisure for Youth Target Market This is imperative as the pages provide a forum for potential tourists to identify a company that deals with the tour and travel activities through pictorial displays. For the youths, tourism or travel activities involve […]
  • Understanding Youth: Consumption, Gender, and Education Thus, because young people represent the specific social group, it is important to reflect on such issues typical for the development of the youth as the questions of consumption, gender, and education.
  • Professional Issues for Child and Youth Care Practitioners in School Based Settings According to Ungar, the major professional issues in the discipline of child and youth, care practices include the programs models that are in use within the learning setting, the preparation procedures concerning educator’s role, functions […]
  • Impact of Digital Drug and Electronic Addiction on UAE Youth Therefore, the primary purpose of this dissertation is to determine the impact of digital drugs and the electronic addiction they cause on the youth of the UAE to highlight the existing problem in society.
  • Youth and Children Ministry What is required is a framework which aids thinking about the task of youth ministry that ensures that Biblical beliefs, values and practices are constantly upheld in our ministry to young people regardless of context.
  • Personal Values Importance in Child and Youth Care These three values that are of importance to me fall under the category of values that I acquired as a result of my socialization.
  • Internet Gambling and Its Impact on the Youth However, it is necessary to remember that apart from obvious issues with gambling, it is also associated with higher crime rates and it is inevitable that online gambling will fuel an increase of crime rates […]
  • Reasons Behind Youth’s Engagement to Drug Abuse in the 21st Century Although youths in the 21st century engage in drug abuse due to several factors, it suffices to declare factors such as the rising unemployment status, peer pressure, and their hiked tendency to copy their parents’ […]
  • Analysis of My Community and Youth Programs The significant challenge lies in the development of programs that meet the developmental needs of the youth. A third program in California involves improving the quality of education in the state.
  • Hip Hop Influence on Youth: Statistics and Effects Hip hop music is also said to perpetuate the rise in criminal activities among the youth. It is therefore recommendable for the youth to shun away from the vice brought about by hip hop music.
  • Exploring The Concept of Youth Cultures Accordingly, the focal concern of this paper has been to accurately comprehend the concept of youth culture and to find out the exact means of finding meaning to the youth identity on the background of […]
  • Marginalized Youths in Australia This conflict mainly between the police and these minority youths as Cunneen explains, has been caused by the unequal distribution of the country’s resources; the pursuit of social networks and the massive youth unemployment which […]
  • Youth Crime in Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight” Film The film uses a triptych storytelling format to highlight the contexts and events in the protagonist’s life, emphasizing potent socio-political and personal themes.
  • Child and Youth Care Perspective on Disability The origin of ASD is still unclear for the medical society, but it is assumed that the combination of genetic and environmental factors can cause it.
  • Premarital Sex Attitudes Among Youth and Adults The purpose of the report is to find out the similarities and differences in people’s treatment of the issue. 20% of females considered premarital sex the major reason for undesired pregnancy and abortions.
  • Mental Health Issues Among LGBTQ (Queer) Youth Studies point to multiple factors that play a role in the risk of suicide among LGBTQ youth, such as gender, socioeconomic status, bullying, and school experience. There is a need for further research and interventions […]
  • Comprehensive Sex Education: Empowering Youth for Informed and Healthy Choices In addition to providing young people with the facts about sex and sexual health, it is also important for sex education to address issues related to consent, sexual harassment, and sexual assault.
  • Non-Consensual Intimate Image Distribution in Youth That is the reason why the topic of an article called Young People Just Resolve It in Their Own Group is relevant and needs to be discussed. This paper aims to analyze the article and […]
  • Religion and Culture: Immigrant and Minority Youth Religion is a fundamental way people experience and comprehend the world if culture describes how people perceive and comprehend the world.
  • Preventing Risky Sexual Behavior Among Youth The nation also losses productive people due to time wasted time and death of young people The two best strategies to effect change at the community level is through media and policy.
  • Suicide Among Youth as a Worldwide Issue The world needs to pay more attention to this issue because of the many young lives that society loses and the socioeconomic and psychological effects suicide causes.
  • The Urgent Problem of Doping in Youth Sports: Solutions and Impact The solution to the problems is for the states to become more careful about the allocation of financial resources in the field of sports.
  • Jamaica’s Unemployment and Positive Youth Development Although a recent positive trend in decreasing levels of joblessness is apparent as the country revitalizes its main source of income, the problem of the high level of unemployment among youth is persistent.
  • Gender and Sexuality in Community Youth Work The primary duty of a youth worker enshrines competently rendering services to the public regardless of gender identity and sexual orientation.
  • Socio-Psychological Trust Issues in Youth The truth is that behaviors associated with distrust, such as trust issues and paranoia, are high in the younger generation toward their peers and fundamental social institutions in the Western hemisphere, and these continue to […]
  • Tackling Drug: Addiction Among Youth Drug addiction is a serious problem, and while it spreads to less marginalized parts of society, this problem affects more people.
  • The Youth Criminal Justice Act in Teresa Robinson’s Case 1 of the YCJA is relevant to the article since the offender’s name is still unreported despite the evidence of his involvement in the homicide.
  • Radicalization of British Youth Into Violent Extremism: The Role of Salafist Ideology Salafism believes that the most principal and genuine type of Islam might originate in the existence of the initial, honorable ages of Muslims known as the Salaf, who lived near the Prophet Muhammad in both […]
  • Sex Variations in the Oral Microbiomes of Youths With Severe Periodontitis The periodontium provides nutrition to the hard tissues of the tooth and the alveolar process – the part of the jaw in which the tooth sockets are located, and it also tightly holds the tooth […]
  • The Youth Justice Strategy Action Plan 2019–21 The Youth Justice Strategy Action Plan 2019 21 marks a crucial turning point in our effort to improve the juvenile justice system and lower the number of juvenile offenders and repeat offenders in Queensland.
  • The University of Maryland’s Youth Sports Program To show the importance of youth sports programs, the report will focus on secondary research to depict the imbalance of academics and sports in the current curriculum used by many schools.
  • Program to Tackle Drug Addiction Among Youth The core area of emphasis will be training the students on different ways to avoid the temptations of using drugs in order to lower the rate of addiction.
  • Eating Disorder Among Youth and Its Aspects It is due to the fact that often the above sociological factors cause the development of psychological issues, especially among young people.
  • Impaired Communication Amongst Youth The paper on ADHD is the research by Yuen-han and Chan who cite the most recent findings in the field and provide a set of recommendations for youth diagnosed with this condition.
  • Retention of Youth by Indian Church of God A case study approach gives a chance to assess how strong the impact of the Indian Church of God is and to evaluate the role of individual members of the church, in particular, the senior […]
  • Youth as the Period in a Person’s Life Youth is both a beautiful and challenging period in a person’s life. Now, living it, I am trying simultaneously to find my purpose and not lose my inner self.
  • Issue of Youth Homelessness in Canada The third and fourth factors, the lack of education and unemployment, are interconnected, resulting in inconsistent and low income and the inability to afford proper housing.
  • Mentoring Youth: Trends and Tradition Considering the information provided in the text, the author’s primary research question concerns the fact what contemporary models of mentorship might be of relevance in the given environment and how these schemes could be implemented […]
  • Substance Use Prevention Among Youth The strategy based on substance use prevention includes a number of tasks to follow to ensure the success of the intervention.
  • Suicidal Thoughts Among LGBTQ Youth: Client’s Case Assessment The therapist must exercise special caution and delicacy while evaluating the factors related to the case and engaging the LGBTQ client in the process of treatment.
  • The Use of Psychoactive Substances by LGBT Youth The purpose of this survey is to identify how reliable the information is that LGBT community adolescents are more likely to use psychoactive substances than heterosexual youth.
  • The Problems of Youth Participation in Sports in the United States According to Atencio and Wright, the main issue covered in youth sports participation in the United States revolves around the relationship between the African American culture and basketball.
  • The Role of Adults in Supporting the Youth Who Play Sports To reduce concerns and enjoy the chosen area of interest, one should recognize the role of adults in supporting youth to play sports.
  • Guaranteeing Safety in Youth Mental Medical Services Centers There is expanding acknowledgment of the drawn-out effect of youth psychological well-being issues and the requirement for a more organized reaction in the US.
  • Gang Culture of Latino Male Youth According to the authors, an occupational viewpoint is vital in inspecting how the exceptional context of a person’s life and location can affect the kind of professions which they are a part of.
  • Gun Violence and Its Effect on Youth As a matter of fact, the intersection of gun violence and domestic violence has the biggest impact on youth almost 60% of young people affected by gun violence every year are affected by homicides.
  • The Loneliness Pandemic in American Youth Loneliness contributes to poor health and unhealthy lifestyles such as social media addiction and damaging activities. Causes of loneliness include feelings of alienation, minimal physical interactions with others, differences in hobbies and lifestyles, and few […]
  • Indian Youth Against Racism: Photo Analysis The main cause of racism within American societies is the high superiority complex possessed by the white individuals living with the Asian American in the society.
  • Competency-Based Model for Youth Leadership Development in the UAE Governmental Organizations In the past, those in position of power would use coercion to ensure that they get the support of the followers.
  • Youth Violence in Schools Paraphrase of the above quotation: The media desensitizes violence and increases aggressive and antisocial behavior, despite this, most youths are constantly exposed to violence and gore in the virtual world which is where they spend […]
  • Should Florida’s School Resource Officers Get Permission to Use Tasers on Youths? Since the use of Tasers is unavoidable, there is the need to ensure the most efficient use of Tasers while minimizing the risks of health complications or death.
  • Implementation of a Public Health Campaign on STDS Among the Youth A number of strategies will be used to actualize the envisaged public health campaign on STDs among the youth. Social media will be used to influence the behavior of the youth in relation to STDs.
  • The Problem of Homeless Youths With HIV-AIDS Studies carried out in the city of New York in 2008 showed that 21 percent of homeless youth males and 24 percent of homeless female youths had “more than 100 lifetime partners”. 5 percent of […]
  • Youth Crime Statistics in the US In 2000, the youth crime rate in juvenile court for drug offenses and public law offenses showed an increase with the age of the youth convict.
  • Sexual Behavior Among Underserved Minority Youth Through IMB Model This article suggests, as one of the options for identifying the determinants and predictors of such behavior, using the information-motivation-behavior model or the IMB.
  • P-Plan Proposal: Youth, Adult and Elderly Abuse To ensure that equality and sanity is maintained, the government normally has some set rules and regulations that have to be adhered to.
  • The Effect of Communicative Means on Youth in Egypt Unfortunately, the modern media is filled with hatred and false claims, which are not filtered and negatively impact youth in Egypt.
  • Modern Communicative Means Effect on the Youth in Egypt For the young people of Egypt, modern communication methods open the opportunity for global integration, which is a key factor in the development of societies at the present stage.
  • Increasing Vocational Opportunities for the Youth Thus, I would like to address the local government to make it more involved in increasing vocational opportunities for the youth because of a few reasons.
  • Youth and Women’s Empowerment in the Economy, Education and Culture Strategy in UAE In March 2015, the Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development and the General Authority of Sports launched the Youth Empowerment Strategy to empower the government and young Emiratis to collaborate on achieving Vision 2021.
  • The ‘Street Games’ Athletic Intervention to Reduce Youth Crime With this announcement, and the creation of the mayor’s Steering Group to address the issue in the urban center, the role of sport in combatting the youth crime epidemic was thrown into the spotlight.
  • Sexuality Problem Among Japanese Youth For instance, the impact of economic stagnation, the effects of the tsunami, and the radioactive crisis influenced people’s minds. Moreover, anime promotes the issue of “hikikomori,” which means a person’s choice to stay isolated and […]
  • Attitude of Youths Towards Entrepreneurship in UAE Studies have attempted to identify factors that impact the attitudes of youths towards entrepreneurship in the UAE. Investigating the attitude of youths towards entrepreneurship in UAE is significant in studies related to it.
  • Some Youth Sports Are Too Intense With a rapid increase of physical achievement requirements and the variety of sports activities, adolescents become involved in sports and disregard the adverse effects of intensity they encounter.
  • How Does Cultural Continuity Play a Role in Youth Suicide Rates Among Indigenous People in Canada? In conclusion, it is possible to mention that there is a direct connection between youth suicide rates among Indigenous people in Canada and cultural continuity.
  • Anxiety and Depression in Hispanic Youth in Monmouth County Therefore, the Health Project in Monmouth County will help Hispanic children and adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 to cope with anxiety and depression through behavioral therapy.
  • The Reducing and Preventing Suicide Attempts Among the Youth As a result, this study included a pre-test in order to compare the intervention and control before and after the program.
  • Radicalization Among Youth: Causes and Solutions In this paper, the research topic focuses on the causes and solutions of radicalization among the youths. As a result, it has been chosen to make the determinations in regard to the question of what […]
  • Evaluating Youth Work With Vulnerable Young People The key determining factor in the choice of an evaluation model is the type and nature of the parameter to be evaluated.
  • Social Innovations. Opportunities for Youth One of the ways which have been identified to help in the empowerment of the youth is through the youth social initiatives.
  • The Prevalence of Vaping Among Youths in Ireland This paper aims to analyze the prevalence of vaping among youths in Ireland, the primary causes of vaping, its health effects, and a recommendation for the appropriate approach to prevent e-cigarette use in Ireland.
  • Employment Programs for Unemployed Youth in the MENA The average youth unemployment rate in these countries was 27 percent back in 2008, the highest of any region in the world.
  • Juvenile and Youth Gangs However, in order to understand what society can do to save juvenile gang members, it is paramount to understand why the youth join these gangs and the key issues associated with juvenile gangs.
  • Consumptions of Fast Foods Among Youth in Saudi Arabia However, little research has focused on the factors that lead to the increased consumption of fast foods in Saudi Arabia among these groups of people.
  • Youth and Sexual Violence Analysis Youth and sexual violence are some of the categories incorporated in the general topic of violence. However various strategies have been incorporated in a bid to the upward trend of violence.
  • Intergenerational Partnerships in the Youth The study illustrates the utility of process evaluation methods for improving a new violence prevention program, Youth Empowerment Solutions for Peaceful Communities.
  • Youths Transitioning Foster Care System These problems have led to the necessity of occupational therapy in the foster care systems where they enable the young people aging out of foster care to deal with these issues.
  • Rate of Pregnancy Among Youths in Australia In most cases, the high rate of teenage pregnancy is a result of poor parenting and lack of sex education in the country.
  • Community Initiatives to Deal With Gang Violence Among the Youth This paper is a study of the activities that the members of the community can engage in to assist this process.
  • Detailed Plan to Attract Youth on Stock Market Investment The management of Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange may consider starting mentorship programs, which target young people in this society in order to attract them to the stock market.
  • “Youth Gangs in American Society” by Tracy et al. The authors also identify some of the major issues and factors encouraging the youth to join different gangs. The book explores “the use of unremittingly tough policies in order to deal with crime and youth […]
  • Smoking Among the Youth Population Between 12-25 Years I will use the theory to strengthen the group’s beliefs and ideas about smoking. I will inform the group about the relationship between smoking and human health.
  • Asthma in School Going Youth: Effects and Management The control and prevention of adverse effects of asthma are goals of managing asthma as stated in the National Asthma Education and Preventive Program asthma treatment guidelines.
  • Alcohol Advertising and Youth This has been achieved by analyzing the relationship graphs of alcohol consumption versus advertising, as well as bans on advertising. One of them is that it only focuses on advertising as the only influencer of […]
  • The Social Environments and the Effectiveness of Youth HIV Prevention It is saddening that most of the youth view sex education negatively since their elders have socialized them to view it as a curse.
  • Youth Justice Conferencing as a Government Hybrid Technique The main rationale of introducing the youth justice conferencing is to provide for a safe and conducive environment in which both the offender and the victim are given equal opportunity to present facts about the […]
  • Family and Community Violence Exposure Among Youth In fact, the harmful effect of violence reflects on the surviving ability of the society.”Violence is among the leading causes of death for people aged 15-44 years worldwide, accounting for 14% of deaths among males […]
  • Behavior Modification as an Intervention to Enhance School and Training Attendance at Manson Youth Institution The process attempts to create a dialogue between the two and this has resulted in increased satisfaction for the victim, the offender ostensibly feels accountable for his actions and there is also lesser recidivism.
  • Communication Final Project: Youth Activism, Social Media, and Political Change Through Children’s Books Picture the Dream was an unconventional exhibition of children’s picture books related to the topic of the Civil Rights Movement and was held in the High Museum of Art.
  • Promoting the Importance of Healthy Living in Singapore Youth Community This information proves that it is necessary to identify how the Singapore youth community can benefit from the promotion of healthy living.
  • Social Media Efficiency in Decreasing Youth Alcohol Consumption The purpose of this paper is to discuss the effects and efficiency of social media in raising awareness of alcohol as a health risk factor and decreasing alcohol consumption among youth.
  • Civil and Political Engagement in Youth The paper highlights the lack of research on the political context and alternate means of civic engagement used by the young generation.
  • Youth-Led Activism and Political Engagement in New Zealand As the authors admit themselves, this choice of topic was due to the article being a part of a larger research project on the organization’s activism in New Zealand.
  • Parent-Teacher-Youth Mediation Program Analysis Firstly, the parent-child communication quality will be evaluated within the framework of the characteristics of their relationships and the ability to manage the conflicting situation.
  • Unruly Youth in Urban Environments. Analysis In the end, marginalization forces both the protagonist of the film and the residents of favelas to illegal activities, such as violence and participating in drug trafficking.
  • Youth Empowerment in the UAE The UAE seeks to increase civic responsibility and leadership skills of youth because young people are considered to be an essential resource for the development of the country.
  • Poor Kids: The Impact of Poverty on Youth Nevertheless, the environment of constant limitations shapes the minds of children, their dreams and the paths they pursue in life, and, most importantly, what they make of themselves.
  • Career Motivation of Youth Professional Activity: RAKBANK At the same time, the orientation of the personnel policy of RAKBANK is the qualification and role of personnel in the implementation of strategic tasks.
  • Family Factors and Youth Suicide This, in turn, is fraught with the loss of contact between a child and parents and is a driver that prompts teenagers to seek a way out in suicidal thoughts.
  • Hardships of African-American Youths in the Singleton’s “Boyz N the Hood” The community that is filled with crime and corruption is a cesspool and is hard to avoid. His father, Furious, grew up in a harsh environment and so, he explains to Tre that the life […]
  • Critical Analysis of Purpose Driven Youth Ministry by Doug Fields It is also evident that the role of the parent in the life of a youth in the church is present in Chapter 4 of the book.
  • Western Pop Culture and Street Fashion of Japanese Youth The research of the topic needs to be preceded by the explanation of the key subjects and notions used in the current paper.
  • Youth & Society Review In the following paper I have my goal to review the article by Robert Crosnoe, Kristan Glasgow Ericson and Sanford Dornbusch about the factors reducing and moderating the impact of deviating friendships among the adolescent […]
  • Deaf Youth: Social Justice Through Media and Activism The Deaf Youth USA for instance strives to educate, inspire, and empower the deaf youth to make difference in the communities.
  • A Community Development Plan for Youth 15-18 Years in Kenyan Kibera Slum The outspoken challenge facing youth in most of the developing nations has been lack of employment to absorb the large numbers of the unemployed youth loitering along the streets.
  • Youth Culture, Obesity and Moral Panic The centrality of this health crisis within the public agenda can be evidenced in the increased coverage by the media and other forms of communication on how the youth are ending up obese due to […]
  • Jobless Youth Joining the Military It is stated that most of the youths in America join the military due to expansion of the nuclear energy and the need for more employees.
  • Youth Cultural Consumption and Its Impact on the Economy Culture is the sphere that can bring great profit to the manufacturers and the youth is the target audience of a great number of businesses belonging to the “culture industry”.
  • Employability of Youths in the US When there is high supply of the youths, their demand by the employers will be less or the rules of the employment will fluctuate and mostly to the advantage of the employer.
  • Youth as Active Participants in Resistance As a subculture it has spilled out from the youth to a wider popular culture acceptable by the main culture, who, while trying to take and accept the youth’s innovations, in design, music, in that […]
  • The Golden Age of Youth and Freedom However, it is interesting to compare it to the story which took place at the dawn of the cultural and sexual revolution in Chinese society.
  • Philosophy of Youth Ministry and Spirituality The sole aim for the formation of the youth ministry is to encourage the young people to learn more about their faith and engage themselves in spirituality.
  • Youth Wages in Australia and Their Advantages This assignment addresses on the advantages of having youth wages increment in Australia, and if the regime of this state should retain the wage arrangements which mainly targets the younger generation under the age of […]
  • Navy’s Child & Youth Programs: Loyal Kids Grant The Navy’s Child and Youth Programs are an essential part of the nation’s child and youth development aimed to promote quality, availability, and affordability of the care under the Department of Defense.
  • “Children With a Star: Jewish Youth in Nazi Europe” by Deborah Dwork Accordingly, this paper will identify some of the themes that are brought out in this book and the contribution of this book to my understanding of the topic of the Holocaust.
  • “The Illogic of Youth Driving Culture” by Tilleczek However, all of the literature included is of recent origin and revolves within the time frame of 10 years and it presents a thorough outline of the problem and the possible solution.
  • “The Wife of His Youth” Short Story by Chesnutt
  • Youth Issue: Teen Pregnancy
  • Community Initiative – The Chinese American Youth Forum
  • Youth Prostitution in America
  • Appropriate Sentence for Violent Youth
  • Homeless Youths and Health Care Needs
  • Youth Crime and Punishment
  • Two Leadership Experiences That Was Significant to Me as a Leader of a Youth Group
  • Asian and Latino Youths Identity Problems
  • American Youth: Consumerism and Consumption Issues
  • Youth Unemployment in Africa: A Challenge for Public Policy Makers
  • Homophile Youth Movement Flier
  • Work for Youth: “Nickel and Dimed” by Ehrenreich
  • Living Environments: Classification for Youth
  • Youth Professional and National Occupational Standards
  • Asian Youth Gangs Analysis
  • The Concept of ‘Youth’ in Relation to Current Policy
  • Internet Drawbacks Upon Youth
  • How Should Youth Combat Negative Moral Influences?
  • Youth Crime. Prejudice: Is It Justified?
  • Smoking and Youth Culture in Germany
  • Marijuana Legalization and Consumption Among Youth
  • The First Aid Knowledge of Youth Soccer Coaches
  • Parents’ Role in Youth Probation Outcomes
  • High-Intensity Interval Training Program for Youth
  • Youth Resilience Across Seven South African Sites
  • Career Counseling Program for Disadvantaged Youth
  • Child and Youth Care Professional Issues
  • Songs of Delaware County Youth Orchestra Concert
  • National Security Language Initiative for Youth Program
  • Does Youth Sports Play a Part in Character Formation?
  • Behavioral Youth Counselor’s Self-Assessment
  • Alcohol and Youth Perception
  • Reducing the Alcohol Abuse Among the Youth
  • Helping Families in Need: Concepts of Child and Youth Care
  • Child, Youth and Family Intervention
  • Youth Subcultures Causing Moral Panic in Media
  • Chapters 7-9 of “Youth Media” by Bill Osgerby
  • National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards
  • Outdoor Activity Sport Business for Women and Youth
  • Canadian Youth Business Foundation Website Analysis
  • Youth Sports Role in Character Formation
  • Safe Driving Among American Youth as Health Issue
  • “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites” by Danah Boyd
  • The Real Needs of Homeless Youth in the United States
  • Youth Suicide Prevention: Health Promotion Plan
  • Social Behaviour as a Science: Drug Abuse in Youth
  • HIV Prevention in Youth: Public Health Campaign
  • Behavior Change Intervention for Youth in Florida
  • Implications of Youth Violence
  • Youth Texting Research Dissemination Strategy
  • Youth Gang Prevention Continuum in Society
  • Drug Prevention Among Rural Hawaiian Youth
  • A New Weapon Used Against Youth
  • Pop Cultural Influence on American Youth
  • Morality, Faith, and Dignity in Modern Youth
  • Youth’s Aggression and Social Media
  • American Youth in Films Since 1980s
  • Youth Drug Abuse Among, Education, and Policies
  • Obesity Consequences for Youth and Adults
  • Prevention of Alcohol Consumption Among Youth
  • Disposable Water Bottle Usage by Youth Population
  • Kuwaiti Youth Activities and Sociopolitical Role
  • Youth Activities in Kuwait
  • Youth Demonstrating Truant Behavior
  • Youth Culture After Technological Advancement
  • Troubled Children and Youth
  • The Internet Effect on the Youth Participation in Politics
  • Culture in “Youth Media”by Bill Osgerby
  • How Does Obesity Affect African American Youth?
  • Social Media Hazards for Youth
  • Youth Cultures and Moral Panic
  • Owning a Gun by Youth in Dangerous Environments
  • Muslim Youth Redefining Leadership by N. Hussain
  • Chinese Youth Sexual Culture
  • Youth Participation in Democracy: China
  • Cyberbullying and Its Impacts on Youths Today
  • Mobile Youth Outreach Service’ Therapy Plan
  • “Let Teenagers Try Adulthood” by Leon Botstein – Youth Issues
  • Computer Apps for Productive Endeavors of Youth
  • Media and Youth Violence
  • Hip Hop Music as Media Influence on the Youth
  • Cultural Awareness Among the Arab Youth
  • Doctors’, Government and Youth Views
  • Youth Issues: Student Differences
  • Youth Issues: Video Games Effects
  • Youth With Autism Disorder: Education and Employment
  • Handling a Depressed Youth
  • Rural–Urban Migration and Youth in Bhutan
  • Lessons of Wisdom From Seniors to Youth
  • The Youth Unemployment Crisis in Spain
  • Sexual Health Education: The Issue of Necessity and Effectiveness of Youth Policies
  • Does Violence in Video Games Affect Youth?
  • Youth Popular Cultures and Music
  • Why Kuwaiti Youth are Reluctant About Using Public Libraries
  • The Role of the Youth Leader
  • Drug Abuse Among the Youth
  • The Impressions of Emirati Youths on ISIS
  • Youth Violence: Prevalence and Trends
  • Somerset Rural Youth Project
  • Somerset Rural Youth Project – Quality Assurance
  • Youth Unemployment in UK and Talent Management Challenges
  • Youth Arts and the Regulation of Subjectivity
  • Youth Antisocial Behaviour: Britain
  • The Effect of Health and Wellbeing on Australian Youth
  • Youth Issues: The State of Children’s Rights in UAE
  • ‘Youth, Adult and Elderly Miracle Centre’
  • Marketing Sports Drinks: What They Don’t Tell the Youth
  • HIV and AIDS Prevention Among the Youth in Asia
  • Gangsta Rap Music as Social Culture in the Journal of Youth Studies by Alexander Riley
  • Public Policy on Youth Gambling
  • Django Paris on Humanizing Research in a Multiethnic Youth Community
  • How Social Media Network Can Change the Attitude of Australian Youth
  • Program Outcomes in a Non-Profit Organization Serving at Risk Youth in an Urban Metropolitan Area
  • Contrast of Youth Employment Methods Between American and Other Countries
  • Archery and Fencing as Youth’s Sports Programs
  • Putting Out the Fires: Will Higher Taxes Reduce the Onset of Youth Smoking?
  • Youth, Crime, and Violence
  • Drug Abuse: Awareness Amongst the Youths
  • The Weekly Article Analysis on Motivating the Aging and Youthful Workforces
  • New Media and Popular Youth Culture in China
  • The Changing Relationship Between the Generations’ Youth Studies Australia
  • Definition of Alcohol Misuse (Alcohol Abuse and Addiction) in Youth Population Age 18-29
  • Youth Culture in the Last 20-30 Years: New York, London and Tokyo
  • Foods That Are Being Served to Our Youth in the School System
  • Connection Between Child Maltreatment and Youth Violence
  • The Concept of Community Development to the Homeless Youths in Australia
  • Youth Culture Under the Globalization Time
  • Police-Youth Relations/Community Policing and Young Offenders
  • Marked Language in Multiracial Youth
  • Police-Youth Relations and Community Policing
  • Child and Youth Care Counselor
  • Violent Video Games and How They Affect Youth Violence
  • Obesity Cases Among Youths
  • Child Welfare in the Together Youth Shelter
  • The Main Cause of Increasing Violent Behavior Among Youths Is Violence in the Media
  • Deviance: Social Problems of Youth Gangs
  • Youth Services: The Review. When Youth Development Theories Prove Right
  • Underlying Causes That Push the Youths Into Crime
  • Youth Unemployment in the UK
  • Youth Culture Under Globalization
  • How Social Network Empowers Youths in the Society
  • The Sexual Practices in the Youths
  • The Youth Issues of Burden Tackling
  • How Extensive Is the Drug Problem Among American Youth Today?
  • A Project on Establishment of Jousing Flats Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centers in Njoro Area to Reduce Prevalence of HIV/AIDS and Provide Nutritional Support Among the Youths Aged Between 16-35 Years
  • School Is Bad for Children: Making Mistakes and Being Wrong
  • How to Reduce the Purchase of Counterfeit “Knockoffs” by College Age Youth (18-24 Years Old)
  • What Is the Latest Fad Among the Youth of India?
  • What Is the Biggest Problem Facing the Youth Today?
  • What Do Older People Regret About Their Youth?
  • What Are the Responsibilities of Youth?
  • What Are General Seminar Topics That Attract Youth?
  • How Can Conservatives Win Back America’s Youth From Progressives?
  • What Is So Painful About the Indian Youth Today?
  • What Are the Youth Problems?
  • What Do You Think Is the Most Critical Issue Facing the Youth of Today?
  • What Does the Pakistani Youth Think About the Indian Economy?
  • What Are the Influences of Media Over the Youth?
  • What Is the Role of the Youth in Eradication of Corruption?
  • Why Is Youth Unemployment So High in Europe?
  • What Are Some Issues Among Youth Today That We Can Discuss?
  • Should Youth Get Involved in Politics?
  • What Is the Impact of Cinema on Our Youth?
  • How Does Poverty Lead to the HIV/Aids Infection Among the Youth?
  • What Are the Impact of Technology on Youth?
  • What Are Two Practical Solutions for Each of the Four Youth Risk Behavior?
  • Does University Really Help Our Youth?
  • How Does Miley Cyrus’ Actions and Attitudes Affect the Youth of Today?
  • How Hiphop Has Changed the Youth in Society?
  • How Much Impact Did Youth Culture Have on Society in the Years 1955-75?
  • How Violent Video Games Really Affect the Youth?
  • What Are the Social Causes of Youth Crime?
  • What Impact Does Internet Have On Today’s Youth?
  • What Is the Role of Youth in Politics?
  • What Differences of the Youth Today Are From the Past?
  • Why Don’t the Youth Nowadays Prefer Farming?
  • What Are the Causes of the Massive Youth Unemployment in Spain?
  • Chicago (A-D)
  • Chicago (N-B)

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IvyPanda . "348 Youth Essay Topics & Examples." March 1, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/youth-essay-topics/.

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My Misspent Youth

By Meghan Daum

Despite following the urban strivers guide to success I was seventyfive thousand dollars in the hole.

A few months ago, I was walking down West End Avenue, in Manhattan, and I remembered with a sadness that nearly knocked me off my feet just why I’d come to New York seven years ago, and why I was now about to leave. Certain kinds of buildings seem almost too gorgeous to exist—in the United States, anyway—and I’m still amazed that massive, ornate residences like 838 West End Avenue, with its yellow façade and geometric terra-cotta panels, or 305 Riverside Drive, with its elegantly carved limestone cornices, receive mail and spill kids out of their front doors like pretty much any domicile anywhere. When I was growing up in northern New Jersey, just twenty-five miles from Manhattan, I had no idea that ordinary people could live in such places. Then, when I was seventeen, I walked into an apartment at West End Avenue and 104th Street and decided that I had to be one of those people.

It was the summer of 1987, and I was learning how to drive a stick shift. My father, who is a composer, had allowed me to drive him to Manhattan in our Plymouth Horizon to drop off some scores with a music copyist. There was nothing particularly striking about the copyist’s apartment: it was a modest four-room prewar with moldings around the ceiling, and I have since mentally supplied it with faded Persian rugs, NPR playing on the radio, and porcelain hexagonal tiles that were coming loose in the bathroom. It’s difficult to imagine a time when I didn’t walk into someone’s apartment and immediately start the income-to-rent-ratio calculations, and I would now guess that the apartment had been rent-controlled for decades, and that the copyist paid perhaps three hundred dollars a month. But on that summer night, looking out the living-room window toward the river that so famously and effectively keeps here safely away from there , money was the last thing on my mind; I just knew that this was where I wanted to live, and from that moment on every decision I made was based on that conviction.

I’ve always been somebody who exerts a great deal of energy to get my realities to match my fantasies. I’m also pretty good at “getting by”—especially if you apply the increasingly common definition of the term, which has more to do with keeping up appearances than with keeping things under control. So it wasn’t until recently that I realized I wasn’t having such a good time in New York anymore. Like a social smoker whose supposedly endearing desire to emulate Marlene Dietrich has landed her in a cancer ward, I have recently woken up to the frightening fallout of my own romantic notions of life in the big city: I’m twenty-nine years old, and I am completely over my head in debt. I have not made a life for myself; I have purchased a life for myself.

For the better part of the last year, the balance of my Visa card has hovered around seven thousand dollars. A significant chunk of that debt comes from medical expenses, particularly the bills for a series of dental procedures I needed. As a freelance writer, it would cost me three hundred dollars a month to buy health insurance in New York State. That’s far more than I can afford, so I don’t have any. Although I try to pay the three-hundred-and-thirty-nine-dollars-a-quarter charge to keep a hospitalization insurance policy that will cover me if some major disaster befalls, I am often late in paying, and it gets cancelled. But medical expenses represent only a fraction of my troubles. I also need to make an estimated quarterly tax payment of fifty-four hundred dollars this month, which is going to be tough, because I recently paid back three thousand dollars to my now ex-boyfriend, who lent me money to pay last year’s taxes, and I still owe three hundred dollars to the accountant who prepared the return. My checking account is overdrawn by a thousand seven hundred and eighty-four dollars. I have no savings, no investments, no pension fund, and no inheritance on the horizon. I have student loans from graduate school amounting to sixty thousand dollars. I pay $448.83 per month on these loans, installments that barely cover the interest that’s accruing.

It’s tempting to go into a litany of all the things that I do not spend money on. I have no dependents, not even a cat or a fish. I do not have a car. I’ve worn the same four pairs of shoes for the past three years. Much of the clothing in my closet has been there since the early nineties, the rare additions usually taking the form of a sixteen-dollar shirt from Old Navy, a discounted dress from Loehmann’s, or a Christmas sweater from my mother. I’ve lived without a roommate only for the last two years. My rent, a thousand and fifty-five dollars a month for a four-hundred-square-foot apartment, is, as we say in New York City when describing the Holy Grail, below market. I do not own expensive stereo equipment, and even though I have a television, I cannot bring myself to spend the thirty-five dollars a month on cable, which, curiously, I’ve deemed an indulgence. With the exception of a trip to Egypt to visit a friend, in 1998, I have not spent money on overseas travel. I’ve still never been to Europe.

Instead, I’ve confined my spending to certain ephemeral luxuries that have come to seem like necessities. I’ll go to Starbucks in the morning, and then order sushi for lunch. I’ll meet a friend for drinks and drop forty-five dollars on Merlot and chicken satay. I make long-distance phone calls almost daily, with no thought of peak calling hours or dime-a-minute rates. I have a compulsive need to keep fresh-cut flowers in my apartment at all times, and spend eight to ten dollars a week on tulips from the Korean market. But these extravagances are merely symptoms of a larger delusion. It’s easier to feel guilt over spending sixty dollars on a blender, as I did last month, than to examine the more elaborate reasons that I’ve found it increasingly impossible to live within my means.

Once you’re in this kind of debt—and by “kind” I’m talking less about numbers than about my particular brand of debt—all those bills start not to matter anymore. If I allowed them to matter, I would become so panicked that I wouldn’t be able to work, which would only set me back further. I’ve also noticed that my kind of debt is surprisingly socially acceptable. After all, I went into debt for my education and my career—broad categories with room for copious rationalizations, and I make full use of them. I live in the most expensive city in the country because I have long believed that my career is dependent upon it. I spend money on Martinis and expensive dinners because, as is typical among my species of debtor, I tell myself that Martinis and expensive dinners are the entire point—the point of being young, the point of living in New York City, the point of living. In this frame of mind, the dollars spent, like the workings of a machine which no one bothers to understand, become an abstraction, a vehicle of taste.

As I try to sort out the origins of my present financial situation, I always come back to the ineffable hankering I had as a teen-ager for some sort of earthier, more “intellectual” life style. I come from an affluent New Jersey suburb whose main draw is its good public-school system, but I wanted to live someplace that looked like Mia Farrow’s apartment in “Hannah and Her Sisters.” (Little did I know that it was Mia Farrow’s apartment.) To me, this kind of space connoted not wealth but urbanity. These were places where the paint was peeling and the rugs were frayed and the hallways were lined with books; places where smart people sat around drinking gin and tonics, having interesting conversations, and living, according to my logic, in an authentic way. As far as I was aware at seventeen, rich was something else entirely. Rich meant monstrous Tudor-style houses in the ritzy section of my town. Rich was driving a BMW to school. I had the distinct feeling that my orthodontist, who had a sprawling ranch house with front steps that were polished to look like ice, was rich. None of these particular trappings of wealth held my attention. In fact, nothing outside of the movies really held my attention until that night in 1987 when I saw the apartment on 104th Street.

I planned my escape from the suburbs through the standard channels: college selection. My logic, informed by a combination of college guidebooks and the alma maters of the brides featured in the Times wedding announcements, went something like this: Columbia rather than N.Y.U., Wisconsin rather than Texas, Yale rather than Harvard, Vassar rather than Smith. My ranking system had little to do with the academic merits of the schools. It was more a game of degrees of separation between me and an apartment full of houseplants on the Upper West Side. Somehow, Vassar emerged as the best contender for closing that gap. I wanted so badly to go to a particular kind of artsy college and mix with a particular kind of artsy crowd that I wasted an alarming amount of time during my senior year of high school throwing trash into various wastebaskets from across the room, saying, “If I make this shot, I get into Vassar.”

As it turned out, I did go to Vassar, and although it would be five years until I entered my debting era, my time there did more than expand my intellect: it expanded my sense of entitlement so much that, by the end, I had no ability to distinguish myself from the many extremely wealthy people I encountered there. A sense of entitlement can certainly be an asset, but it has also played a supporting role in my financial demise—mostly because it made it hard to recognize where ambition and chutzpah end and potential bankruptcy begins.

When I graduated, in 1992, I followed a herd of my classmates into Manhattan; many of them moved back in with their parents on Park Avenue. I got an entry-level job in publishing, and, along with a couple of friends, rented a five-room prewar apartment with chipping paint on 100th Street off Riverside Drive, a mere five blocks from the scene of my high-school epiphany. Such expert marksmanship! I was ecstatic. My job, as an editorial assistant at a glossy fashion magazine, paid eighteen thousand dollars a year. The woman who hired me, a fifties-era Vassar graduate, told me that she hoped I had an independent source of income, as I certainly wouldn’t be able to support myself on my salary. But I did support myself. My roommates—an elementary-school teacher, who was making nineteen thousand dollars a year, and a film student, who worked part time at a non-profit arts organization—supported themselves, too. We each paid around five hundred and fifty dollars a month in rent and lived as recent graduates should, eating ramen noodles and ninety-nine-cent White Rose macaroni and cheese.

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my youth essay

Looking back, I see those years as a cheap, happy time. It was a time during which a certain kind of poverty was appropriate. Unlike the West Seventies and Eighties, my neighborhood seemed like a place for people who knew the city, for people from the city. Though I was living hand to mouth, I loved it there, and looked forward to moving ahead in my career and one day being able to afford my own place in the neighborhood. Then, that seemed well within the realm of possibility. It was 1993, I was twenty-three, and I’d received a raise, so that I was earning twenty-one thousand dollars a year. I had no idea that this was the closest I’d be to financial solvency for at least the next decade.

I’d been told I was lucky to have got a job at a magazine—I had, after all, graduated into what was being called the worst job market in twenty years—and even though I had little interest in its subject matter, I didn’t dare turn down the position. Within my first week on the job, I found myself immersed in a culture of money and celebrity. Socialites sat on the editorial board in order to report on trends among the rich and famous. Editorial assistants who earned eighteen thousand dollars managed to wear Prada, have regular facials, and rent time-shares in the Hamptons. Many of them lived in doorman buildings, for which their parents helped foot the bill.

This wasn’t my scene. I felt as far away from my “Hannah and Her Sisters” fantasy as I had in the suburbs. After a year of office work, I decided that an M.F.A. in creative writing would provide the most direct route to literary legitimacy. I applied to Columbia, which, not coincidentally, happened to be within walking distance of my apartment. It also has one of the most expensive writing programs in the country, a fact that was easy to forget, because the students, for the most part, seemed so down to earth and modest. In their flannel shirts and roach-infested student housing, they seemed as earnest and poor as I was, and I figured that if they could take out twenty-thousand-dollar-a-year loans, so could I. In the three years that I spent at Columbia, borrowing more than sixty thousand dollars to get my degree, I was told repeatedly—by fellow-students, faculty, administrators, and professional writers whose careers I wished to emulate—not to think about the loans. Student loans, after all, were low-interest, long-term, and far more benign than credit-card debt. Not thinking about them was a skill that I quickly developed.

If there is in this story a single moment when I crossed the boundary between debtlessness and total financial mayhem, it’s the first dollar that I put toward my life as a writer in New York—despite the fact that I was hanging out at the Cuban coffee shop and traipsing through the windblown trash of upper Broadway. The year I entered graduate school was the year I stopped making decisions that were appropriate for my situation and began making a rich person’s decisions. Entering this particular graduate program was a rich person’s decision. Remaining there when it became clear that I was not going to get any scholarship money, and that the class schedule would prevent me from holding down a day job, was also a rich person’s decision.

But it’s hard to recognize that you’re acting like a rich person when you’re becoming increasingly poor. Besides, I was never without a job. I worked for an anthropology professor for nine dollars an hour. I read manuscripts at ten dollars a pop for an ersatz literary agent. I worked at a university press for ten dollars an hour. Sometimes I called in sick to these jobs and did temp work at midtown offices for seventeen dollars an hour. A couple of times, I took out cash advances on my credit cards to pay the rent. There was a period during a particularly miserable winter, in 1994, when I tried to make it through three weeks on thirty-four dollars, walking sixteen blocks to school in subzero temperatures and stealing my roommates’ food, hoping they wouldn’t notice. One day, I slipped on the ice three times, got in a cab, and decided to take out a private loan from Columbia for two thousand five hundred dollars. A thousand of it went to pay off part of a credit card. I used up the rest within a month.

There were a handful of us who were pulling stunts like this. One of my roommates had maxed out her credit cards in order to finance a student film. I knew several women, and even a few men, who were actively looking for rich marriage partners to bail them out. One aspiring novelist I know underwent a series of drug treatments and uncomfortable surgical procedures in order to sell her eggs for twenty-five hundred dollars. Whether or not one is paying twenty thousand dollars’ tuition a year to try to make it as a writer, New York City in the nineties is a prohibitively expensive place to live for just about anyone. Although I devoted a lot of energy to being envious of Columbia classmates whose relatives were picking up the tab, it later became clear to me that the need for outside financial support is not limited to those in entry-level jobs or expensive graduate programs. These days, pursuing a career in the arts in New York is often contingent upon inheriting the means to do so.

As I was finishing at Columbia, however, I began to get some freelance work, so I continued to hedge my bets. I was publishing magazine articles regularly and, after a few months of temping at insurance companies and banks, scored some steady assignments that, to my delight, allowed me to work as a full-time freelance writer. After five years and eight different roommates in the 100th Street apartment, I was earning enough money to move into my own place. More important, I had found a two-year sublet in a rent-stabilized building, and the fact that I had done so through a Columbia connection seemed almost sufficient justification for the money I’d spent on grad school.

Things were going well. In 1997, I was twenty-seven, teaching a writing course at N.Y.U., publishing in a variety of magazines, and earning about fifty-five thousand dollars before taxes. (The teaching job paid only twenty-five hundred dollars for an entire semester, but I was too enamored of the idea of being a college instructor to wonder if I could afford to take it.) I had a decent-sized apartment with oak floors and porcelain hexagonal tiles that were coming loose in the bathroom. Like an honest New Yorker, I even had mice lurking in the kitchen. I bought rugs and a fax machine. I installed a second telephone line for the fax. Finally, I was leading the life I’d spent so long preparing for.

Then came the dental bills, which I was forced to charge to Visa. I tried not to think about that too much, until I ended up making a few doctor’s visits that, because I was uninsured, I also charged to Visa. When April rolled around, I realized that my income was significantly higher that year than it had been in any previous year, and that I had woefully underestimated what I owed in taxes. Despite a profusion of the typical freelancer’s writeoffs—movies, magazine subscriptions, an $89.99 sonic rodent-control device—I was hit with a bill of more than twenty thousand dollars. And although the I.R.S. apparently deemed sonic rodent-control devices an acceptable deduction, it seemed that I’d earned too much money to be eligible to write off the nearly seven thousand dollars (most of it interest) I’d paid to the student-loan agency or the three thousand dollars in dental bills. In the months it took me to assemble that twenty thousand dollars, I had to reduce my student-loan payments from the suggested eight hundred dollars to the aforementioned $448.83 a month. Most heartbreaking of all, my accountant determined that my sixty-dollar pledge to WNYC—my Upper West Side tableau couldn’t possibly be complete without the National Public Radio coffee mug—was not entirely tax deductible.

It was around this time that I started having trouble thinking about anything other than how to make a payment on whatever bill was sitting on my desk, most likely weeks overdue, at any given time. I began getting final disconnection notices from the phone company, letters from the gas company asking “Have you forgotten us?,” collection calls from Visa. A friend who had been a member of Debtors Anonymous urged me to put a note over my phone that read, “Owing money does not make me a bad person.” I didn’t do this, partly because it wouldn’t have fit in with the décor of my apartment, and partly because I wasn’t sure she was right. She did, however, persuade me to call Visa and put a hold on my account for six months, which would reduce my payments to a hundred and five dollars a month and freeze the interest. This required telling the customer-service representative at Visa that I was experiencing some financial “hardships.” When she asked me to be more specific, I told her that I had medical expenses, and hung up the phone feeling as if I had a terminal illness.

I noticed that I was drinking more than I had in the past, often alone at home, where I would sip Sauvignon Blanc at my desk and pretend to write when in fact I’d be working out some kind of desperate math equation on the tool-bar calculator, making wild guesses as to when I’d receive some random eight-hundred-dollar check from some unreliable accounting department of some slow-paying publication, how long it would take the check to clear, what would be left after I set aside a third of it for taxes, and, finally, which lucky creditor would be the recipient of what remained. There’s nothing like completing one of these calculations, realizing that you’ve drunk half a bottle of $7.99 wine, and feeling guiltier about having spent $7.99 than about being too tipsy to work. One night, I did a whole bunch of calculations and discovered that, despite having earned a gross income of seventy-eight thousand dollars in 1998, despite having not gone overboard on such classic debtor’s paraphernalia as clothes and vacations and stereo equipment, despite having followed the urban striver’s guide to success, I was more than seventy-five thousand dollars in the hole.

There are days when my debt seems to be at the center of my being, a cancer that must be treated with the morphine of excuses and rationales and promises to myself that I’m going to come up with the big score—book advance, screenplay deal, Publishers Clearinghouse prize—and save myself. There are other days when the debt feels like someone else’s cancer, a tragedy outside myself, a condemned building next door that I try to avoid walking past. But the days when I can pretend that money is “only money” are growing farther and farther apart. I have friends who are getting rich off the stock market and buying million-dollar houses. I have other friends who are almost as badly off as I am, and who compulsively volunteer for relief work in Third World countries as a way of forgetting that they can’t quite afford to live in the First World.

But New York City, which has a way of making you feel like you’re in the Third World just seconds after you thought you’d conquered all of Western civilization, has never really belonged to the rest of the country. I suppose that part of the city’s magical beastliness is the fact that you can show up with the best of intentions, do what’s considered to be all the right things, achieve some measure of success, and still find yourself trapped in a financial emergency.

As I write this, I have to be out of my sublet within months. Even if I try to assume control of the lease, the landlord will renovate the apartment and raise the rent to two thousand dollars. When I reported this calamity to a friend the other day, hoping she would gasp in sympathy, she instead replied, “That’s cheaper than our place.” A two-bedroom apartment down the street recently rented for forty-five hundred a month. A small studio on the Upper West Side will go for an average of twelve hundred and fifty dollars. West 104th Street is totally beyond my means. Worse, 104th Street is now beyond the means of most of the people who made me want to live here in the first place. The New York that changed my life on that summer night when I was seventeen no longer exists.

Several months ago, on a day when the debt anxiety had flared up even more than usual, I found myself fantasizing about moving to Lincoln, Nebraska. I’d been to Lincoln twice on a magazine assignment, met some nice people, and found myself liking it enough to entertain the notion of moving there. But both times I’d discarded the idea the minute the wheels hit the tarmac at LaGuardia. Surely I’d never be able to live without art-movie houses and twenty-four-hour takeout. During my last round of panic, however, I convinced myself that it was a good plan. I can rent an apartment there for three hundred dollars a month. I can rent an entire house, if I want one, for seven hundred dollars. Full-coverage health insurance will cost me seventy-five dollars a month. Apparently, people in Nebraska also listen to NPR, and there are even places to live in Lincoln that have oak floors. Had I known that before, I might have skipped out on this New York thing altogether and spared myself the financial and psychological ordeal. But I’m kind of glad I didn’t know, because I’ve had a very, very good time here. I’m just leaving the party before the cops break it up. ♦

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Essay on Power of Youth

Students are often asked to write an essay on Power of Youth in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Power of Youth

The potential of youth.

Youth is a time of power and potential. Young people have energy, creativity, and passion that can be harnessed for great achievements. They are our future leaders, innovators, and change-makers.

Driving Social Change

Youth are often at the forefront of social change. They are not afraid to challenge the status quo and fight for what they believe in. Their fresh perspectives and determination can lead to significant societal advancements.

Shaping the Future

The power of youth is crucial in shaping our future. By utilizing their unique skills and ideas, they can help create a better world for everyone. Let’s empower our youth and celebrate their potential.

250 Words Essay on Power of Youth

The unstoppable force of youth.

The power of youth is an often-underestimated force that holds the potential to revolutionize societies. This power is not just physical, but intellectual, emotional, and social. The youth are the torchbearers of change, the architects of the future world.

Intellectual Power

The intellectual power of youth is unparalleled. They are the ones who question the status quo, challenge conventional wisdom, and introduce innovative ideas. Their fresh perspectives and unbounded curiosity drive advancements in various fields, from technology to social justice.

Emotional Power

Emotionally, the youth are a powerhouse of passion and optimism. They are not easily deterred by failures or setbacks. Instead, they learn, adapt, and bounce back with renewed vigor. Their resilience fuels their pursuit of dreams, making them an unstoppable force.

Social Power

Youth also wield significant social power. They are the ones who shape cultures, trends, and societal norms. With their ability to connect and collaborate using digital platforms, they can mobilize collective action on a global scale, influencing political and social landscapes.

Challenges and Opportunities

However, this power also comes with challenges. The youth must navigate a complex, rapidly changing world. They face pressures from societal expectations, economic uncertainties, and environmental crises. Yet, these challenges also present opportunities for growth. Through their struggles, the youth develop resilience, empathy, and a sense of responsibility.

In conclusion, the power of youth is a transformative force that can reshape societies and usher in a better future. It is a power that needs to be nurtured, harnessed, and celebrated. For it is the youth who will inherit the world of tomorrow, and it is their power that will shape its destiny.

500 Words Essay on Power of Youth

The power of youth: a catalyst for change.

The youth are often referred to as the ‘future of the nation’, but they are much more than that. They are the vibrant, dynamic segment of the population who hold the power to shape the present and mold the future. This power of the youth is not just about physical strength or intellectual prowess, but a combination of passion, innovation, and the courage to question the status quo.

Passion: The Driving Force

The youth possess an innate passion that fuels their desire to effect change. This passion, coupled with their energy and enthusiasm, enables them to challenge existing norms and conventions. They are not afraid to dream big and work towards achieving their goals. This audacity to dream and the resilience to pursue those dreams is what sets the youth apart and makes them a potent force for societal transformation.

Innovation: The Key to Progress

The youth’s power is also evident in their ability to innovate. They are at the forefront of technological advancements, pushing boundaries and creating solutions that were unimaginable a few years ago. Their innovative ideas and out-of-the-box thinking are instrumental in driving progress in various fields, from science and technology to arts and culture. This innovative spirit of the youth is a testament to their potential to drive growth and development.

The Courage to Question

One of the most significant aspects of the power of youth is their courage to question. They are not content with accepting things as they are and have the audacity to question the status quo. This trait is crucial for societal evolution as it promotes critical thinking and encourages the pursuit of truth and justice. The youth’s ability to question and critique is a powerful tool for societal reform and progress.

The Youth as Agents of Social Change

The power of youth extends beyond individual capabilities to collective action. Youth-led movements across the globe have demonstrated the potential of the youth to bring about social change. From climate change activism to advocating for social justice, the youth have shown that they are not just passive observers but active participants in shaping the world.

Conclusion: Harnessing the Power of Youth

The power of youth is undeniable. However, it is essential to provide them with the right opportunities and platforms to express and utilize this power effectively. Empowering the youth through education, skill development, and inclusive policies can help harness their potential for the betterment of society.

In conclusion, the power of youth is a transformative force that can drive societal change and progress. It is a power that is fueled by passion, innovation, and the courage to question. By recognizing and nurturing this power, we can ensure a brighter and more prosperous future.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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The Boys of My Youth

The Boys of My Youth

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Read by Jo Ann Beard

By Jo Ann Beard

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Description

  • Biography & Autobiography
  • Literary Figures
  • "Smart, funny, and moving...A gifted and gutsy writer...This is what a first collection of stories should be." Barbara Fisher, Boston Globe
  • "Extraordinary...Beard is writing not with the romanticism of a girl looking up at the stars, but with the brilliant cold light of the stars looking down on us." Ted Anton, Chicago Tribune
  • "Beard remembers (or imagines) her childhood self with an uncanny lucidity that startles." Laura Miller, New York Times Book Review

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  • Role of Youth Essay

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Essay on the Role of Youth in Modern Era

Youth is joy. Youth is a phase in which small children have come out of their protective shells and are ready to spread their wings in the world of hope and dreams. Youth means to cherish hope. It is a time of development. It is the time for growth and change. He plays an important role in the development of our society. He has the potential to learn and adapt to the environment. He has the capabilities to bring social reforms and improvement to society. His idealism, enthusiasm and courage cannot be matched with any other segment in the society.

Role of Youth Essay In English

Every person grows the most in their youth. People go through times of joy, hardship, worry but at the end of the day, we all become better. Youth has to be the most important part of everyone’s life, considering just how much one person can develop during these years. These years will not only offer opportunities for growth but will also help us in getting a better understanding of ourselves. This understanding of oneself is an unending process. It marks its beginning in our youth and continues to be a major part of our lives in the future. We grow as people, learn how to develop relationships, and understand the people around us much better when we reach our youth.

As kids, we take many things for granted. We take our friends for granted, we sometimes take our blessings for granted and it makes sense because the only thing that children are focused on is living. We don’t care about anything else and just want to live a fulfilling life as children. When we reach our youth, we become more goal-oriented. We prioritize our time and become more focused on what we want in life. No matter what happens or what age you reach, one must always keep their inner child alive. The child that wants to live life to the fullest. The child that wants to cherish some of the most amazing moments that life has to offer. The child laughs and giggles at the silliest things. Oftentimes, as adults, people tend to forget to enjoy life and have a good time. And that is why it is essential to continue to be that child throughout the entirety of your life. 

Youth is the time in our lives that teaches us how to make decisions and start making reasonable choices for our betterment. Our youth builds our character and is a very crucial part of our development.

Youth is the part of our lives that builds our character. The morals and responsibilities that we take up and learn in this period of our life shapes our future. The kinds of choices that you make and the decisions in your lives, start having a consequence in this period. There are several ways in which the youth of a person leads to many changes in their life. Young people are energetic, enthusiastic and filled with a lot of passion. The young spirit that every leader talks about refers to the same thing. The passion and the energy in this period of our lives, when put to something very creative and useful can easily lead to developing our skills and leading us to a bright future right away. 

Youth’s Roles and Responsibilities In Today’s Era

Youth and life indeed itself flashes by, in the blink of an eye. That is why you need to ask yourselves what you can do for society and the country. God has vested all power in the hands of the youth so that he can perform his duties effectively. They should start thinking positively and creatively. They must develop the spirit to refute what is wrong in society. They must realize that now is the time to take action. 

Youth should not seek an easy, comfortable path. No one develops in a pampered environment. These are some key responsibilities that the young generation must inculcate in them:

Value Of Time: It is the responsibility of the youth to understand the importance of time. Every moment is crucial for them to take action so punctuality is a must.

Discipline: Youth has to understand the necessity of discipline in life. Youth is full of passion. Without discipline, the youngsters cannot work passionately.

Thinking Before Taking Action: Youth must not be impulsive. It is very important to think before taking action. This is how the youth will be able to create a thoughtful society.

Character Driven: Character builds up a nation. The young people need to be morally strong, reflective individuals and dedicated which will drive them to take corrective actions for the nation.

Fearless: The youth must be courageous in taking action. Fearless youth can fight injustice.

Goal-Oriented: The youth needs to be focused on the goals that he wants to accomplish. When the young generation is goal-oriented, then their vision and mission become very clear.

Zealous: Youth has to be energized, full of vitality. With the attribute of zealousness, the youth can help to protect the national security and interest of a country and ideological position.

Role of Youth In Building A Nation

National development is now in the hands of the young generation. The older generation has passed on the baton to the youth. The young generation has more concurrent dreams, passion and hope. Youth in any country represents the future of his nation. 

For the development of the country, the young people have to be hardworking in any field they get involved in, be it teaching, farming, mechanic or any other field. Today the youth is facing challenges in employment opportunities, drug abuse, HIV/AIDS but there are chances to overcome some of these challenges. They need to take up any job opportunity that is available till they get what they want to. The young generation has to be very responsible and say NO to drugs. Youth empowerment can eradicate poverty from the country. He plays an important role in the constructive process of building social cohesion, economic prosperity and political stability of a nation in an inclusive and democratic way. 

The youth of a country counts as the most important asset that they can possess. Youth is the chance for the entire nation to leave a mark on the entire globe. By making sure that the youth of a nation continues to grow with each passing day and ends up achieving some of the most brilliant things that can put their country on the top, the nation can rebuild and grow with them.

Better youth and better quality of life for youth assures success for not only the existing generation but also for the upcoming generation. Therefore there is no denying the fact that a country can become much better with the support of the youth that they have.

Role of Youth For The Change In The Society

Youth is the future of society.  The young generation simply needs to renew, refresh and maintain the current status of society. When the youth contributes his ideas and energy to resolve social issues, he becomes a capable leader and can also make a difference in the lives of others. They must have the courage to resolve the mournful contradictions that are plaguing society and boldly take on great challenges without shunning the subsequent problems and difficulties that they will inevitably face.

Nothing can equal the splendour of the youth. To be young --- that in itself is to possess a treasure of infinite worth far greater than any person of power. It is the responsibility of the older generation to provide them with the right resources, guidance and a good environment so that they become strong change agents in the community. They say that the strongest force is the power of the young. And it is true because the power and the strength that the youth of a nation possesses is unmatched and does bring a chance to grow and develop not only for them but for the people around them.

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The Boys of My Youth Summary & Study Guide

The Boys of My Youth by Beard, Jo Ann

The Boys of My Youth Summary & Study Guide Description

The following edition of the book was used to create this study guide: Beard, Jo Ann. The Boys of My Youth. First Back Bay paperback edition. 1999.

“The Boys of My Youth” by Jo Ann Beard is a collection of 13 autobiographical essays that combine to form a collage-style memoir of the author’s life. The essays are not organized in chronological order, but are instead presented in a loose thematic order, with a number of themes subtly building on one another over the course of the collection. The essays range from sharing idyllic experiences — such as the author’s experience of watching Fourth of July fireworks with her family as a child in “Behind the Screen” — to terrifying ones, such as when the author’s small, pleasant office is shot up by a vengeful gunman in “The Fourth State of Matter.”

The collection begins with two very short essays, a Preface and “In the Current,” which share two images from the author’s youth. In the Preface, Jo recalls a pre-verbal memory where she repeatedly cries in her crib in the dark. “In the Current” shares Jo’s memory from a camping trip as a child, when she saw a group of teenagers being helplessly carried down a river before being rescued by adults at the campsite. “Bonanza” shares Jo’s childhood experience of being literally bored to tears while visiting her Grandma and her Grandma’s off-putting new husband, Ralph, in Knoxville.

“Cousins” builds a bridge to Jo’s teenage and young adult years. The essay details the relationship between Jo and a female cousin she calls Wendell, flashing back from scenes of their childhood to scenes from the adulthood, such as going to a bar together, and Wendell’s wedding. “Behind the Screen” returns to Jo’s childhood as she watches fireworks with her family. “Coyotes” details how Jo can get lost in her own thoughts, in this case while on a camping trip in Arizona with her boyfriend, Eric. “Against the Grain” is a brief essay that details Jo’s ex-husband’s perfectionist tendencies when he attempted to remodel the house when they were married.

“The Fourth State of Matter” unofficially begins the second half of the book, by delving into far more serious topics. The essay portrays a listless Jo, immediately following her marriage, as she works at a small, friendly office while endlessly puttering around the house. On a day when she happened to leave for home early, a vengeful gunman comes into the office and murders her beloved colleagues before shooting himself.

“Bulldozing the Baby” is the last essay in the collection that deals with an exclusively lighthearted topic: Jo’s deep and unbreakable connection with a gross childhood doll, which her aunt secretly steals and throws away in a rest stop trash can. “The Family Hour” shows Jo in the midst of her young childhood. Her father, while a kind, gentle man, is also a drunk, and one day he drunkenly crashes his car into an embankment, and walks five miles home bloodied and with all his teeth knocked out. “Waiting” details how Jo and her older sister, Linda, spend time in the hospital with their mother in the last days and hours of her own life. “Out There” briefly describes how Jo, on an impromptu road trip in the haze of her divorce, is threatened by a violent motorist on an isolated Alabama highway, who aggressively tails her for some time.

The titular essay, “The Boys of My Youth” is the final essay, by far the longest essay, and the cumulation of all the built-up themes. The essay bounces back and forth between scenes of Jo’s adolescence, as she hopelessly crushes over boys with her friend Elizabeth, and scenes from Jo’s thirties, when she and Elizabeth frequently call each other on the phone to discuss men in the light of both their divorces. It is revealed that Jo’s ex-husband, who had cheated on her during their marriage, is in fact the same Eric who had been her boyfriend, as depicted in “Coyotes.” In the present day, both women are excited for each other as they pursue new romantic prospects.

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"Running from My Youth": Essays

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Running From My Youth: Essays is a collection of nonfiction essays that explore important moments and experiences from the narrator's youth, and how he has addressed and remembered them in the years since. Some of the essays explore the narrator's time as a distance-runner, while others explore the awkwardness and discomfort onset by religion and nudity.

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iii, 50 pages

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Jernigan, Hunter Jason Alexander December 2019.

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  • Name: Master of Arts
  • Level: Master's
  • Department: Department of English
  • College: College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
  • Discipline: Creative Writing
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  • Grantor: University of North Texas
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Jernigan, Hunter Jason Alexander. "Running from My Youth": Essays , thesis , December 2019; Denton, Texas . ( https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1609123/ : accessed April 19, 2024 ), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu ; .

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The Food of my Youth

When you are always on the run, from the bill collectors or the Man, or people in suits checking up on you, you need foods with a long shelf life. When the lights went out in our apartment and so did the electric stove, we lived on saltines with peanut butter and beans from a can. We ate like miners. There was a certain pride to be had in eating like men who were prospecting for gold, because the prospect of a better future is what had brought my family here to northern California. Later, in the early ’80s, Ma’s pursuit of higher education plopped us in our small apartment in Los Angeles along the 405 freeway.

Meanwhile, my grandmother’s garage back in Seaside was lined with MREs—Meals Ready to Eat. I fingered those army-colored cans and felt safe. Their sturdiness, the security my Filipino grandfather gave us by earning them when he was in the US Army. He’d brought us from the hungry jungle to a decent house in a small town by the ocean.

Growing up, I drank powdered milk and ate Spam, Vienna sausages, “new potatoes” (small, peeled potatoes in a can), and rice with butter, salt, and pepper. The vegetables were jaundiced, green beans made salty and chewy in chicken stock, or sweet, thick creamed corn.

For dessert, we had Halo-halo, an array of tropical sweet beans and chewy strips of orange jackfruit served over ice, with sweetened condensed milk, a Filipino treat—the most complicated act of love. To get the ingredients, we had to go to a special Filipino market, but once we had them, they would last on the shelf all year long.

We did our best to get enough food. We tried to get in front of the hunger by eating casseroles, greasy noodle dishes, and white bread covered in that sweetened condensed milk. Or SOS—“shit on a shingle,” toasted white bread with white gravy—ground beef when we could afford it, a block of Velveeta cheese in the freezer, and a plate with softened butter on the table.

We ate quickly and with our hands. Raised plates to our mouths and made a trowel out of chopsticks. We lived as people without money do, with a sense of impending doom that everything as we knew it could end at any time. Despite the end-time anxiety, we ate as often as possible. Ma and I left my Lola’s house for Los Angeles so she could go to college. When we ran out of money one Christmas, we ate the free, sticky vegetarian treats handed out after dancing with the Hari Krishnas.

We ate at people’s homes in the evening before reciting the rosary, in soup kitchens, outside churches—sometimes after playing musical chairs around a cake, it was called the cake walk… a game played at street fairs. And we drank coffee at all hours to quell our appetites. Not real coffee but the International Delights kind, a powdered sugary drink. I’d say that this felt like junk or that I felt like I had a strong stomach, or that it felt like decades of poverty running through my veins, but I don’t have much else to compare it to. I knew other kids in our apartment building who walked around with a sandwich baggie filled with Kool-Aid crystals, we’d lick our fingers and dip them in, suck the pink, purple, blue, powder off, all of us a gaggle of dyed tongues. It wasn’t until later that I felt ashamed of the things I put in my body.

When I was fifteen, I was taken out of Ma’s care. There was abuse and there was resistance and there was a single parent trying her best, but her best wasn’t the same as Department of Children and Family Services’ best. I walked into my first group home. After scavenging through a bin of donated clothes, worn T-shirts with summer-camp slogans of places I’d never been, I encountered in the kitchen a new world of locked refrigerators with dated food in plastic containers. On the doors was affixed a detailed meal plan:

Monday: meatloaf, rice, and green beans Tuesday: spaghetti with garlic bread, and salad Wednesday: hamburgers Thursday: taco night…

It was lonely there, but at least I didn’t have to worry about going hungry. I didn’t like to eat food prepared by other people—I was afraid I would taste their emotions—so I learned to cook the food provided by the county. It was largely frozen, prepared in bulk. Salad was a sturdy iceberg with sliced carrot slaw; the ground beef came in a fat tube. The group home kitchen, with all its canned food, and dates on plastic containers, resembled a bunker in the Midwest, as if we were all preparing for the apocalypse.

Only, for us, the explosions had already happened. The places we’d called home had been lit up and burned to the ground, with nothing left save for the blackened foundations of our past. We kids were screaming for love, for touch, for home. But we found ourselves in limbo, guarding our hearts, biding our time before the Unknown, waiting to see where we would end up. In that place of permanent temporariness, food was the only thing we had some control over; the rest was all court dates and social workers and group therapy and anger management.

It was there that I became a numbered girl. No longer Melissa, or Missy, or Missy Ann, or a girl who preferred the name Randy or Andy, but a girl with a case number, a file, a social worker, and a court date.

Hunting season didn’t begin when I became a numbered girl. Hunting season began way back in the sixties when my family bought property in the US, and earned paychecks. Then again when we moved to LA in the eighties and I tested as a gifted child in my class, when I began competing against the Joneses’ child, competing and surpassing, being noticed. It was at this time that I started hearing about “deadbeat dads” on talk shows, and getting called to the front of the class for lunch tickets. Just me and sometimes one other poor child. This is when the lights were cut off; this is when the collectors started calling.

Or, to my child’s mind, that’s how it seemed—not coincidence, but some grand conspiracy. I felt that my classmates—girls with names like Cindy and Sara with bright shiny shoes, whose daddies owned the businesses Ma and I begged at—were all in on some secret my family wasn’t privy to. I’d look longingly at my white friends’ granola, brown rice, and multigrain bread. Trips to the grocery store were always loaded with feelings of shame and desire. Fresh produce was the most extravagant, exotic thing on the shelves, even though it was my people that had picked it in the Central Valley. I feared I would taste the sweat and tears of a cousin or the impatient plucking of a woman who wanted to get home to watch soap operas.

Even though the food of my youth was largely county food, I also had my fill of food in foster care. Dry chicken dinners. Water. Salad. Three-course meals. Yet it tasted hollow, as if it had a hole in it or was seasoned with longing. Longing was not a feeling I could afford to have.

This has been the cruel irony of America to me: it is the place of dreams, yet to long for anything in this country is to be an object of shame and repulsion. Because our fathers who joined the military were half-lost to the violence they were sent to commit in other countries, or to the women they sought comfort from, or men, or to the booze or drugs, or to the new and unburdened lives… because of all that, army brats like me stood beside our then-single mothers in line at the supermarkets, arguing with the cashier about the high cost of our groceries. And when the Man handed over our food stamps, we were called moochers, a drain on our country. It’s no different now—worse even, as those people on the Hill try to pass a bill that would make people earn their food stamps. Tacking on work requirements—implying that foster kids are too lazy to pay for their own food, that mothers like mine, whose husbands went off to serve and never came back quite the same, are just not trying hard enough to make ends meet.

I don’t know how I got so lucky to be here today. Most likely, it has everything to do with the help I got along the way: treatment through Medi-Cal from the county, my Ma’s food stamps, the affordable housing, the books—all those books (from libraries and teachers and charities and every saved penny from my paychecks). The generosity and kindness and mercy of everyday people. Today, I get to live like there’s time. I long. I plan. I have the pleasure of walking to the farmer’s market and inhaling the bright scent of the peaches and plums. Like a mama hen, I pluck produce and jam, olive oil, hummus. I turn brown eggs over up beside my ear and listen to their yolks. I let the juice from fresh fruit break open in my mouth. I tell my wife that I’m cooking L-O-V-E for dinner.

But sometimes, I feel that familiar feeling—as though I’m under attack. It’s that same threat that pervaded my childhood, from a small but powerful group of people demanding tax cuts for themselves and taking away what little everyone else has. They are The Hunters. When I hear about millions of people  losing access to food stamps, and children no longer able to eat those free lunches I had the luxury of hating; when I hear about a young man, not unlike all the young men I knew, getting shot in the street, or when there’s talk of a wall being built, or when my media stream fills with the sound of children crying out for their parents, that distinct wail that only a broken-hearted child can make… it’s then that I reach for the food of my youth. Corned-beef hash. Spam. Fried Bologna sandwiches. It’s a conversation I’ve been having in my head with America, the one where I’m told I’m bad and I believe it, just long enough that I have to prepare for the end of the world.

Melissa Chadburn is a contributing editor for the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and an editor-at-large for Dame Magazine . Her first novel,  A Tiny Upward Shove , is forthcoming. (February 2018)

Co-published with The New York Review of Books .

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Melissa Chadburn

Melissa Chadburn has written for Guernica, Buzzfeed, Poets & Writers, Salon, American Public Media’s Marketplace, Al Jazeera America, and dozens of other places.

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6 ways to improve a college essay

by: Carol Lloyd | Updated: February 9, 2023

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If your high school senior is anything like mine, then they may have a handful of college essays in various states of undress. One is a daydream in search of an idea, others are dutiful outlines, two are actual drafts. Not a single one of them is ready for submission — not even close.

But that’s not what my daughter thinks. To her, her second drafts are “ready” and her first drafts are “close.”

The good news is that she’s got time. The bad news is that she doesn’t know how much work lies ahead. Unless your child goes to a high school with a particularly rigorous approach to writing, college essays are probably your teen’s first encounter with the woes and wonders of extensive rewriting .

So how can you nudge your child to keep working on those “final drafts”? Start by encouraging your teen to reread their “final” draft for these six things. And remember to give your child lots and lots of props for their continued effort. In this day and age, it’s tough being a college applicant. Let your teen know you admire all their hard work.

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16 Best Essays on Youth – [ Power, Problems, Impacts ]- 2024

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The youth are the backbone of a country’s progress and development. The following short essay on the youth explains about the youth of today, factors of youth crimes, frustration and ways to contain it. The essay is quite helpful for student examinations.

List of Topics

The Youth Essay | Short Essay on Youth of Today & the Cause of Youth Crime

Youth are the key to the future. One of the most vibrant segments of the country, there is great hope from them. With the right mindset and ability, youth can contribute to the development of the nation.

The Youth of Today

The human civilization is a product of centuries of evolution. Every generation contributes towards the development of the society with its set of ideas and opinions. Despite this, the human mind has grown very impatient over the years. Despite its potential, youth today can also be seen as impatient and impulsive. Youth today are eager to learn and explore new things. Although they may seek the counsel of their elders from time to time, they don’t want to follow their wisdom on every step.

The young generation today is so eager to accomplish different things that it doesn’t pay attention to the means it chooses. While there have been many advancements in the fields of science, engineering, mathematics, architecture, and so on, it is also true that the crime rate has increased over the last couple of decades. There is more violence than ever in the world today and a large part of it is due to the youth.

Factors that Promote Crime among Youth:  Here are some of the reasons the younger generation commits crime.

  • Lack of Education
  • Unemployment
  • General Dissatisfaction towards life
  • Growing Competition

Conclusion:  In order for their children to become good human beings, parents must nurture them. In addition to teachers, youth also benefit from all that they learn at schools. They need to take their responsibility seriously. They build a strong nation by nurturing honest and committed individuals.

Essay on Youth Empowerment 

Youth play a vital role in a nation. When nations have energetic, curious, and hardworking youth and are able to provide these youth with ample opportunities to work and grow, their nation will be able to grow stronger.

Youth make up about 65% of the Indian population. Youth in this country have excelled and made the country proud with their hard work and talent. Indian youth have a thirst for knowledge and enjoy learning new things. Young people in our country excel in every field, from science to technology to sports.

The Need of Youth Empowerment 

These are some of the reasons why it is important to empower young people in this country:

  • To develop their personal and professional skills and knowledge.
  • They can use this to explore their interests.
  • Awakening their hidden potential.
  • The purpose is to make them aware of the problems in society and to teach them how they can contribute to eradicating the problems.
  • Organize exchanges between youth from different parts of the country as well as from different nations.

Youth Empowerment in India

India aims to develop its youth through youth-led initiatives as well. Young people should take an active role in the country’s development and growth instead of becoming its beneficiaries. National Youth Policy was launched by the government to empower and encourage young minds. Through such initiatives, the potential of the youth is directed in the right direction and, in turn, helps strengthen the country as a whole.

The government has also launched several educational programs to ensure that all children in the country receive education. There is no gender discrimination in India. A program called Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao has been introduced by the government with the aim of empowering girls in the country.

As part of the empowerment of the youth, the Department of Youth Affairs also takes part in the initiative. In recent years, the country has launched a number of initiatives to enhance the leadership skills of young people. The nation’s growth and development shall be recognized worldwide when the nation’s youth makes full use of their skills and potential.

Conclusion:  The right direction is for a nation to focus on its youth and empower them through a variety of initiatives and programs. The Indian government is working to build a strong and intelligent youth. There is still much work to be done, however.

Essay on Today’s Youth | Role, Importance & Problems

Young people refer to those who have yet to enter adulthood but are no longer children. Today’s youth differs quite a bit from generations past. The youth have undergone a serious shift in their ideology and culture. There have been both positive and negative effects on society due to this.

With the advent of various gadgets due to technological advancements, lifestyles and attitudes towards life have changed. This has affected the youth the most out of all parts of the population.

Mobile phones and social media have become such an integral part of the youth’s lives that they have forgotten that there is a world outside of them. As a result, today’s youth is self-obsessed and wants to showcase everything they do on social media. Their aim is not to enjoy the moment, but to show how happening their life is. Everybody seems to think that their lives are extremely good, but they are actually trying to prove that they are.

The lifestyle of the modern youth has been restructured with the development of technologies such as cell phones and social networking websites, as well as various gadgets and technologically advanced equipment. Young people prefer to work out at a gym rather than go for a brisk walk in the morning .

In a similar vein, while earlier people used to walk miles to reach their school and workplace, the youth of today prefer to drive even if it is a short distance. We are using elevators instead of stairs, cooking food in microwaves and air fryers instead of stove tops, and preferring malls to parks. The youth are losing touch with nature thanks to technology.

Conclusion:  India’s youth are unaware of the rich culture that has always characterized our country. Despite the importance of not being bound by superstitions, we should instill the good our culture has to offer. Similarly, one must use technology to improve their lives. It is not ours to be its slave.

Short Essay on Youth

A youth is often described as enthusiastic, vibrant, and lively. The young are full of life since they belong to a generation that has just come of age. Learning new things and exploring the world is what they are passionate about.

Energy is high among them and they do not want to follow the traditions and customs of the previous generations. Their approach to everything is logical, and they question the radical thinking of the elders. The later, however, is usually the one who ends up being annoyed.

There have been several government programs to ensure that Indian children get an education. It is imperative to impart education to young people if they are to grow up to be strong and productive adults. Teachers and parents must also take the responsibility of cultivating responsible youths as a duty.

In the various fields of study in India, there are a lot of young talented individuals who excel. The Indian youth has made a significant contribution to Information Technology in the country. In addition to the medals won in various sports, young Indians’ talent also stands out. In spite of our best efforts, there are still a great number of unemployed and uneducated youth in the country.

Essay on Youth of India:

The youth of India is the backbone of our nation. They are full of energy, enthusiasm and optimism, which makes them capable of achieving great things in life. The future of our country depends on them as they will be the ones who will take over the reins and lead this nation forward.

However, the current state of the youth in India is a matter of concern. In this short essay, we will discuss the various challenges faced by the youth in India and how they can overcome them.

One of the biggest challenges faced by today’s youth is unemployment. The lack of job opportunities has left many educated and skilled young individuals struggling to find work. This not only affects their financial stability but also takes a toll on their mental health and confidence.

To tackle this issue, our government must take necessary steps to promote entrepreneurship and create more job opportunities for the youth. Additionally, the youth must also be encouraged to develop new skills and upgrade their existing ones to increase their employability.

Another major challenge faced by the youth in India is education. While education is considered a basic right, many young individuals still lack access to quality education due to various reasons such as poverty, gender discrimination, and lack of infrastructure.

Our government must focus on improving the education system and making it more inclusive for all sections of society. At the same time, it is important for parents and society as a whole to encourage and support the youth in pursuing their education.

Education not only provides knowledge but also helps individuals in developing critical thinking and decision-making skills, which are essential for the progress of our nation.

Apart from external challenges, there are also internal challenges that the youth face today. Peer pressure, substance abuse, and mental health issues are some of the common problems faced by young individuals. To overcome these challenges, it is crucial for them to have a strong support system – be it family, friends or mentors.

The youth must also educate themselves about these issues and learn to make informed decisions that will benefit their overall well-being. Additionally, the government and society must work together to create awareness and provide necessary support and resources for young individuals facing such challenges.

Finally, it is important to recognize that the youth of India are not just a problem but also a solution. They possess immense potential and have the power to drive positive change in our society. It is essential for them to be given opportunities and platforms to express their ideas and contribute towards nation-building.

With proper guidance, support, and encouragement, the youth of India can overcome any challenge and help in building a better future for themselves and the country as a whole. In conclusion, it is crucial for the youth of India to be empowered and equipped with the necessary skills and resources to fulfill their role as the future leaders of our nation.

So let us all come together and work towards creating a better tomorrow for ourselves and the generations to come. Let us believe in the potential of our youth and help them reach greater heights. Only then can we truly say that we have a bright future ahead for our beloved country

Role of Youth in Nation Building:

The role of youth in nation building is a topic that has been widely discussed and debated. It is believed that young people have the potential to drive significant change and contribute towards the development and progress of a nation.

With their energy, enthusiasm, and fresh ideas, the youth can bring about positive transformations in various fields such as politics, economy, science and technology, and social welfare.

The first and foremost role of youth in nation building is to actively participate in the democratic process. By exercising their right to vote and making informed decisions, young people can shape the political landscape of a country. They have the power to choose leaders who will work towards the betterment of society and address issues that affect them directly.

Youth involvement in politics also helps to bring new perspectives and innovative solutions to complex problems. It encourages a more inclusive and diverse representation in government, leading to effective governance.

Moreover, the youth have a crucial role in driving economic growth and development. With their knowledge of technology and entrepreneurship skills, they can create new jobs and boost innovation. Startups founded by young entrepreneurs not only contribute to the economy but also promote social change through their products or services.

The government must provide support to these initiatives by creating an environment conducive for startups to thrive and offering financial aid or training programs. By empowering the youth to become job creators, a nation can reduce its unemployment rate and achieve sustainable economic growth.

In addition to politics and economy, the youth also have an important role in promoting social welfare. They are well-informed about social issues and are more open-minded towards diversity. By actively engaging in community service projects and volunteering for social causes, young people can bring about positive change in their local communities.

This not only helps to address societal problems but also fosters a sense of empathy and responsibility among the youth. Furthermore, by advocating for human rights and equality, they can create a more inclusive society where everyone’s voices are heard.

In conclusion, the role of youth in nation building is crucial and cannot be ignored. They have the potential to shape the future of a nation and must be given adequate support and opportunities to do so. The government, as well as society, must recognize and harness their capabilities towards achieving progress and development.

Essay on Youth Problems:

Youth is a time of transition, growth, and exploration. It is a period where one begins to understand their personal identity, form relationships, and make important life decisions. However, it is also a time of vulnerability and potential challenges. In this essay, we will explore some of the most common problems faced by today’s youth.

One of the most pressing issues facing young people today is mental health. Studies have shown that more than half of all mental illnesses emerge by age 14, and three quarters by age 24. This highlights the need for increased awareness and support for young people struggling with their mental well-being. Factors such as academic stress, social media, and peer pressure can contribute to feelings of anxiety, depression, or other mental disorders.

It is crucial for society to provide adequate resources and support for young people dealing with mental health issues. This can include access to therapy, education on coping mechanisms, and creating a stigma-free environment where seeking help is encouraged.

Additionally, substance abuse is a major problem among young people in many countries. Drug and alcohol use can often start during the teenage years when individuals are more likely to engage in risky behavior and seek out new experiences. Peer influence, curiosity, and a desire to fit in can all contribute to experimenting with substances.

However, this experimentation can quickly spiral into addiction and have serious consequences on one’s physical and mental health. It is important for parents, educators, and policymakers to address the root causes of substance abuse and provide resources for prevention and treatment.

Another issue affecting youth is unemployment. With the rise of automation and technological advancements, many traditional jobs are becoming obsolete, making it difficult for young people to enter the workforce. This can lead to feelings of hopelessness, frustration, and financial instability.

Additionally, the increasing cost of education and lack of job opportunities can also contribute to high levels of student debt among young adults. It is crucial for governments and organizations to invest in programs that provide vocational training, job opportunities, and financial support for young people to overcome these challenges.

Finally, another problem faced by today’s youth is the pressure to conform to societal norms and expectations. From a young age, children are bombarded with messages about what it means to be successful, attractive, or popular.

This can lead to low self-esteem, body image issues, and a constant feeling of not being good enough. It is important for society to promote diversity and individuality rather than enforcing narrow standards of beauty or success.

Youth and Technology Essay:

Technology has become an integral part of our lives, especially for the youth. From smartphones to laptops, social media platforms to streaming services, technology is constantly evolving and influencing how we live, work, and communicate.

The impact of technology on today’s youth is both positive and negative, and it is essential to understand its effects to ensure responsible usage.

On the positive side, technology has opened up a world of opportunities for youth. It has made education more accessible with online learning platforms and educational apps. This has not only improved the quality of education but also allows students to learn at their own pace.

Technology has also made communication easier and faster, connecting people from all around the globe through social media platforms. This has helped in breaking down cultural barriers and promoting diversity.

Moreover, the use of technology in various industries has created job opportunities for young individuals and has boosted economic growth.

However, with the increased use of technology, there are also negative effects to consider. One of the biggest concerns is the impact on mental health. The constant exposure to social media can lead to feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem among youth who compare themselves to others online.

Additionally, excessive screen time has been linked to sleep deprivation and decreased physical activity, leading to various health issues. Technology also poses a threat to privacy and security, with the risk of cyberbullying, online predators, and hacking.

To ensure responsible usage of technology, it is essential to educate youth about its potential risks and benefits. Parents, educators, and policymakers need to work together to teach young individuals how to use technology in a safe, ethical, and responsible manner. This includes setting boundaries for screen time, promoting healthy habits such as exercise and face-to-face interactions, and educating about online safety measures.

It is also crucial for technology companies to prioritize user privacy and security. With responsible usage, technology can continue to be a powerful tool for the youth, shaping their lives in a positive way. It is up to us to guide and empower them to use it wisely.

So, we see that technology has truly transformed the world we live in and will continue to do so. As long as we understand its potential and use it responsibly, it will bring about progress and growth for our youth.

Essay on Impact of Social Media on Youth:

Social media has become an integral part of our lives, especially for the younger generation. It has significantly changed the way we communicate, access information, and interact with each other. With the rise of platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, social media has become a dominant force in society.

While it offers numerous benefits, there are also concerns about its impact on youth. In this essay, we will discuss the positive and negative effects of social media on youth.

Positive Impact of Social Media on Youth

There is no denying that social media has brought about positive changes in the lives of young people. It has made it easier for them to connect with their friends and family, regardless of geographical barriers.

They can share photos, videos, and updates with each other in real-time, which helps them stay connected even when they are far apart. This has also made it easier for young people to maintain relationships and build new ones.

Moreover, social media has broadened the horizons of young people by exposing them to different cultures, beliefs, and ideas from around the world.

They can learn about different perspectives on various issues and engage in meaningful discussions with others. This can help them become more open-minded and tolerant individuals. Social media has also provided a platform for young people to express themselves and showcase their talents.

It has given rise to new opportunities for artists, musicians, and content creators to share their work with a global audience. This has enabled young people to pursue their passions and showcase their creativity.

Another positive impact of social media on youth is its role in education. With online platforms like YouTube, Khan Academy, and Coursera, students now have access to a wealth of educational resources. They can learn new skills, supplement their classroom learning, and even enroll in online courses from top universities around the world.

Social media has also made it easier for students to collaborate with each other on group projects and share study materials. This has transformed the way young people learn and has made education more accessible.

Negative Impact of Social Media on Youth

While social media has its benefits, there are also concerns about its negative impact on youth. One of the most significant issues is the addictive nature of social media. Young people spend hours scrolling through their news feeds, liking and commenting on posts, and constantly checking for updates.

This can lead to a decrease in productivity and can even have adverse effects on mental health. Studies have shown that excessive use of social media can contribute to feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and depression in young people.

Another concern is the impact of social media on self-esteem. With the rise of platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where users share carefully curated images and videos, there is a growing pressure for young people to maintain a certain image or appearance. This can lead to body image issues and low self-confidence among adolescents.

Additionally, cyberbullying has become a prevalent issue on social media, with young people being targeted by their peers through hurtful comments, hate speech, and even threats. This can have a severe impact on their mental health and well-being.

Social media has also been linked to the spread of misinformation and fake news. With the ease of sharing information on social media, young people are exposed to a vast amount of content, not all of which is accurate or reliable.

This can lead to confusion, misinterpretation, and even radicalization among youth. Furthermore, the constant comparison with others’ lives on social media can create feelings of inadequacy and FOMO (fear of missing out) in young people.

In conclusion, social media has had a significant impact on youth, both positive and negative. It has revolutionized the way young people connect, learn, and express themselves. However, it is crucial to be aware of its potential drawbacks and use it responsibly.

Parents, educators, and policymakers must work together to educate young people about the responsible use of social media and address any challenges that may arise from its widespread adoption. With proper guidance and awareness, social media can continue to have a positive impact on the lives of young people while mitigating its negative effects.

Essay on Youth Day:

Youth Day is an annual holiday celebrated in various countries around the world. It is a day dedicated to honoring and celebrating the youth, who are considered the future leaders of society. This essay will delve into the significance of Youth Day, its history, and its importance in shaping the future.

Significance of Youth Day

Youth Day serves as a reminder that the youth are not just the leaders of tomorrow, but they also have a significant role in shaping the present. It is a day to recognize and appreciate their potential, energy, and enthusiasm.

The celebration aims to inspire and empower young people to take charge of their lives and contribute positively towards their communities. Moreover, it highlights the importance of investing in the youth for sustainable development.

History of Youth Day

The origin of Youth Day can be traced back to the United Nations General Assembly in 1999. On this day, the UN adopted the World Programme of Action for Youth, which outlines a set of policies and strategies to address the challenges faced by young people.

This includes issues such as education, employment, health, and human rights. Since then, several countries have designated specific days to celebrate their youth and raise awareness about their needs and aspirations.

Importance of Youth Day

Youth Day serves as a platform for young people to voice their opinions, concerns, and ideas. It provides them with an opportunity to participate in decision-making processes and be heard by those in power. This not only empowers the youth but also promotes a sense of inclusion and representation.

Additionally, celebrating Youth Day helps raise awareness about the challenges faced by young people, such as unemployment, poverty, discrimination, and lack of access to education and healthcare. It is a call to action for governments and society as a whole to prioritize investing in the future leaders of our world.

In conclusion, Youth Day is more than just a holiday. It is a reminder of the potential and power of the youth in shaping our society. It is a day to celebrate their achievements, acknowledge their struggles, and work towards creating a better future for them.

As we commemorate this day, let us remember that investing in our youth means investing in the progress and prosperity of our world. So, let us celebrate and empower the future leaders of our society on this Youth Day and every day.

So, let’s continue to support and uplift the youth in their endeavors towards a brighter tomorrow. Indeed, they are not just the leaders of tomorrow, but also the change-makers of today.

Essay on Youth and Social Media:

Youth and social media have a complex relationship. On one hand, the rise of social media has greatly impacted the lives of young people, providing them with new ways to connect, share, and express themselves.

On the other hand, it has also brought about many concerns and challenges that need to be addressed. In this essay, we will explore the positive and negative effects of social media on youth and discuss ways in which we can promote responsible use among young people.

One of the most significant advantages of social media for youth is the easy access to information and knowledge.

With just a few clicks, young people can learn about current events, global issues, and different cultures from all around the world. This exposure to diverse perspectives can broaden their understanding of the world and spark critical thinking skills.

Moreover, social media allows them to connect with experts in various fields and seek guidance or support for their academic pursuits. It also provides them with a platform to share their ideas and creativity, which can foster a sense of empowerment and boost self-confidence.

However, social media use among youth has also been associated with various negative effects. One major concern is the impact on mental health.

Constant comparison to others’ curated lives on social media can lead to feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, and depression. The fear of missing out (FOMO) culture that is prevalent on social media platforms can also make young people feel pressured to conform to unrealistic standards and live up to an idealized image.

This pressure can be especially harmful for those who are already struggling with self-esteem issues or mental health disorders. Moreover, the constant exposure to cyberbullying and online harassment can have serious consequences on a young person’s well-being.

To address these concerns, it is crucial to promote responsible social media use among young people. This can be done by educating them about online safety, privacy settings, and how to identify and deal with cyberbullying.

Parents and educators also play a significant role in guiding young people towards healthy social media habits. Encouraging offline activities and setting boundaries for screen time can help strike a balance between virtual and real-life interactions.

It is also essential for young people to cultivate critical thinking skills and develop a healthy skepticism towards information they encounter on social media. Teaching them to fact-check and verify sources can help combat the spread of misinformation.

Furthermore, social media platforms can also take steps to promote responsible use among young users. This can include stricter policies against cyberbullying, age verification measures, and providing resources for mental health support. Social media companies should also work towards creating a more inclusive and diverse online environment that celebrates individuality rather than promoting unrealistic standards.

By collaborating with experts and organizations, they can develop features that encourage positive interactions and healthy content consumption.

In conclusion, the impact of social media on youth is undeniable. While it has its benefits, such as easy access to information and self-expression, it also poses challenges that need to be addressed. By promoting responsible use among young people, educating them about online safety, and working towards a more inclusive online space, we can create a healthier relationship between youth and social media.

It is our responsibility to ensure that this powerful tool is used in a way that empowers and uplifts young people rather than causing harm. So let us all work together towards creating a safer and more responsible digital world for our youth

Essay on Youth Unemployment:

Y outh unemployment is a growing concern in today’s society. With the rise of technology and changes in the job market, it has become increasingly difficult for young people to find employment opportunities. In this essay, we will explore the causes and impacts of youth unemployment and discuss possible solutions to address this issue.

One of the main causes of youth unemployment is the lack of job readiness and skills among young people.

Many young individuals enter the job market without the necessary education, training, or experience needed to secure a job. This mismatch between what employers are looking for and what young people can offer makes it difficult for them to find employment.

Additionally, the rapid technological advancements have led to a shift in the job market, making it challenging for young people to keep up with the required skills and qualifications.

The impacts of youth unemployment are significant and can affect not only individuals but also society as a whole. Unemployed youth face financial insecurity, which can lead to poverty and homelessness.

They may also experience mental health issues such as anxiety and depression due to feelings of worthlessness and lack of purpose. Moreover, high rates of youth unemployment result in lost productivity, reduced economic growth, and increased government spending on welfare and social programs.

To address the issue of youth unemployment, governments and organizations need to work together to provide more opportunities for young people.

This includes investing in education and training programs that equip them with the necessary skills for today’s job market. Career counseling and mentorship programs can also help guide young individuals towards career paths that align with their interests and strengths.

Furthermore, creating an environment conducive to entrepreneurship can encourage young people to start their own businesses, thus creating job opportunities for others as well.

In conclusion, youth unemployment is a complex issue with far-reaching consequences. It requires a collective effort to address the root causes and find sustainable solutions.

By investing in the education and training of young people, providing mentorship and career guidance, and promoting entrepreneurship, we can reduce youth unemployment rates and pave the way for a more prosperous future for our youth and society as a whole. Let us work towards building a world where every young person has access to equal opportunities for success

Essay on Youth Crime:

Youth crime is a serious issue that has been on the rise in recent years. It encompasses various acts of criminal behavior committed by individuals under the age of 18. According to statistics, adolescents and young adults are more likely to engage in criminal activities than any other age group.

This essay will discuss the causes of youth crime, its impact on society, and possible solutions to address this growing problem.

Causes of Youth Crime

There is no single factor that can be attributed to youth crime. Rather, it is a complex issue influenced by a combination of individual, family, social, and environmental factors. Some of the common causes include poverty, substance abuse, lack of parental guidance and supervision, peer pressure, mental health issues, and exposure to violence.

Poverty, in particular, has been linked to an increased risk of young people engaging in criminal behavior as they may turn to illegal activities as a means of survival. Moreover, substance abuse can also contribute to youth crime as it impairs judgment and decision-making abilities.

Impact on Society

Youth crime not only affects the individual perpetrators, but it also has a significant impact on society as a whole. The fear of crime can lead to increased levels of anxiety and stress among citizens, ultimately affecting their mental health.

Moreover, youth crime often results in property damage and loss for innocent victims, leading to financial burdens for individuals and businesses. Furthermore, the rise in youth crime rates can also harm the economy by reducing tourism and investment opportunities in affected areas.

To effectively address youth crime, a multi-faceted approach is required. This includes addressing the root causes of the issue and implementing preventive measures.

Some possible solutions include providing educational and vocational opportunities for at-risk youth, improving access to mental health services, increasing parental involvement in their children’s lives, and promoting positive peer influences.

Furthermore, the criminal justice system should focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment for young offenders to prevent them from reoffending. Additionally, community involvement and support are crucial in preventing youth crime.

In conclusion, youth crime is a complex issue that requires collective efforts from individuals, families, communities, and the government to address it effectively.

By understanding the root causes of this problem and implementing preventive measures, we can create a safer and more positive environment for young people to thrive in. It is essential to remember that prevention is key in reducing youth crime rates and creating a better future for our society as a whole.

Let us work together towards providing our youth with the necessary support and opportunities to lead fulfilling lives free from criminal activities

Essay on Impact of Movies on Youth:

Movies have always been an integral part of our culture and society. They have the power to entertain, educate, and influence people in various ways. With its visual appeal, gripping storylines, and relatable characters, movies have a huge impact on youth.

This impact can be positive or negative depending on the type of movie they are exposed to. In this essay, we will discuss the impact of movies on the youth and how it shapes their beliefs, behavior, and attitudes.

One of the positive influences of movies on youth is its ability to educate. Movies can be a powerful medium to convey important messages and raise awareness about social issues. They have the power to shed light on pressing matters like poverty, discrimination, bullying, mental health, and more.

For example, movies like “Schindler’s List” and “12 Years A Slave” have depicted the horrific realities of the Holocaust and slavery respectively. These movies not only educated young audiences about these dark periods in history but also instilled empathy and compassion in them. They also serve as a tool for learning about different cultures, traditions, and customs from around the world.

Moreover, movies can also inspire and motivate youth to pursue their dreams and passions. Many teenagers are influenced by actors and actresses they see on screen and aspire to be like them.

This not only introduces them to potential career paths but also encourages them to believe in themselves and work towards their goals. For instance, the “Rocky” franchise has inspired countless individuals to take up boxing or other forms of sports.

Similarly, movies like “The Social Network” have motivated young entrepreneurs to start their own businesses. Movies have the power to show young people that with determination and hard work, anything is possible.

However, with great power comes great responsibility. While movies can have a positive impact on youth, they can also have a negative influence if not monitored properly. One of the biggest concerns about the impact of movies on youth is its portrayal of violence and other mature themes. Many studies have shown a correlation between violent behavior in real life and exposure to violent content in movies.

This is particularly concerning as young audiences are more susceptible to these influences and may imitate what they see on screen. Moreover, movies that promote harmful behaviors like drug abuse, risky sexual activities, or unhealthy relationships can also have damaging effects on youth.

These movies can shape their beliefs and attitudes towards such behaviors, leading to potential harm in their lives.

In conclusion, movies have a significant impact on youth. They can educate, inspire and entertain them, but they can also influence them negatively if not monitored carefully. As responsible adults, it is important for us to guide young audiences in choosing the right kind of movies that align with positive values and messages.

This will not only help shape their beliefs and behavior in a positive way but also promote critical thinking and media literacy among the youth. Movies are a powerful tool that should be used wisely for the betterment of the youth and society as a whole.

Argumentative Essay on Youth of Today:

As technology advances and the world becomes more interconnected, young people are facing a unique set of challenges and opportunities. The youth of today have access to an abundance of information at their fingertips, but also face pressures from social media, societal expectations, and a rapidly changing job market. In this essay, we will explore how these factors affect the youth of today and discuss ways in which they can navigate this complex landscape.

The Impact of Technology

Technology has undeniably changed the way young people interact with the world. From smartphones to social media, technology is deeply ingrained in the lives of today’s youth. While it has made communication and information more accessible, it also brings a new set of challenges. The constant stimulation from screens can lead to addiction and negatively impact mental health.

Additionally, the rise of cyberbullying and online harassment has become a major concern for young people. It’s important for parents and educators to educate the youth on responsible technology use and create a safe environment for them online.

The Pressure of Social Media

Social media has become a prominent presence in the lives of young people. While it can be a great tool for communication and self-expression, it also perpetuates unrealistic expectations and comparisons. Young people are bombarded with images of seemingly perfect bodies, relationships, and lifestyles, leading to feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem.

It’s crucial for young people to understand that social media is curated and often does not reflect reality. Educating them on how to engage with social media in a healthy way can promote positive self-image and mental well-being.

Societal Expectations and Job Market

The youth of today are also faced with pressure from society to succeed academically and professionally. The job market is becoming increasingly competitive, and young people are expected to excel in their studies to secure a good job.

This can lead to immense stress and anxiety, as well as a fear of failure. It’s important for society to recognize that success looks different for everyone, and there should be more emphasis on individual growth and personal fulfillment rather than solely focusing on career achievements.

Navigating the Complex Landscape

Despite these challenges, there are also numerous opportunities available to the youth of today. With access to a vast amount of information and resources, young people have the ability to learn and develop at an unprecedented rate. They also have the power to create meaningful change through their voices and actions.

It’s crucial for young people to find a balance between utilizing technology and social media while prioritizing mental health and personal growth. By fostering open communication, providing support systems, and encouraging self-care practices, we can help guide the youth towards a successful future.

In conclusion, the youth of today face a unique set of challenges and opportunities in an increasingly digital world. As older generations, it’s our responsibility to support and guide the younger generation as they navigate this complex landscape.

By promoting responsible technology use, addressing societal pressures and expectations, and fostering personal growth, we can help the youth of today become confident and successful individuals who will shape our future for the better.

Let us strive to create a supportive environment that empowers them to reach their full potential. So let us work together towards building a brighter future for our youth – one where they are equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary to thrive in a constantly evolving world.

Q1: Who is a youth essay?

A1: The question is unclear. It seems to be asking about an essay on the topic of youth, but it’s not a well-formed question.

Q2: What is the importance of the youth?

A2: Youth is important as they represent the future of society, bring new ideas and energy, and contribute to social and economic development.

Q3: What is youth in life?

A3: Youth is the stage of life that typically spans from adolescence to early adulthood, characterized by physical, emotional, and social development.

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Friend of My Youth

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The story begins and ends with a dream that the narrator has about her mother . Why do you think that the story is framed in this way, and how does it help you to understand the story?

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My Misspent Youth: Essays

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Meghan Daum

My Misspent Youth: Essays Paperback – November 3, 2015

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Now back in print, author of The Unspeakable Meghan Daum's acclaimed cult classic that revitalized the personal essay for a new generation of writers Meghan Daum is one of the most celebrated nonfiction writers working today, widely recognized for the fresh, provocative approach with which she unearths hidden fault lines in the American landscape. From her well-remembered New Yorker essays about the financial demands of big-city ambition and the ethereal, strangely old-fashioned allure of cyber relationships to her dazzlingly hilarious riff in Harper's about musical passions that give way to middle-brow paraphernalia, Daum delves into the center of things while closely examining the detritus that spills out along the way. She speaks to questions at the root of the contemporary experience, from the search for authenticity and interpersonal connection in a society defined by consumerism and media; to the disenchantment of working in a "glamour profession"; to the catastrophic effects of living among New York City's terminal hipsters. With precision and well-balanced irony, Daum implicates herself as readily as she does the targets that fascinate and horrify her. In this stirring and surprising collection we see the emergence of a talented new voice in American writing.

  • Print length 192 pages
  • Language English
  • Publisher Picador
  • Publication date November 3, 2015
  • Dimensions 5.61 x 0.53 x 8.3 inches
  • ISBN-10 1250067650
  • ISBN-13 978-1250067654
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“Maybe you once found yourself in the dimming light of your twenties. And maybe someone handed you a copy of the book My Misspent Youth and maybe you thought, Finally, someone has written exactly how I feel. ” ― New York Magazine “An empathetic reporter and a provocative autobiographer ... I finished it in a single afternoon, mesmerized and sputtering.” ― Caleb Crain, The Nation “Throughout this book, there are a surprising number of moments when your jaw just drops in amazement at what [Daum is] saying. Even when she's being funny, her writing has a clarity and intensity that just makes you feel awake.” ― Ira Glass “Meghan Daum is not an eccentric exhibitionist or a self-indulgent memoirist. Her world is suburban New Jersey girlhood, Vassar, publishing, and the disillusionment that results when the reality of one's life falls short of expectations. Daum approaches the first lesson of adulthood--that the prosaic will intrude on the fantastic every time--without ever dissolving into cynicism . ” ― The New York Times Book Review “People I know still talk about Meghan Daum's 2001 debut essay collection, My Misspent Youth . Nobody writing about her generation was more incisive or entertaining than she.” ― Sigrid Nunez

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  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador (November 3, 2015)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250067650
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250067654
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.1 ounces
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  • #2,723 in Humor Essays (Books)
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Meghan daum.

Meghan Daum is the author of six books and writes a biweekly

column about culture and politics for Medium. Her most recent book, The Problem With Everything, will be published October 22, 2019 by Gallery Books. Her last

book is The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion,

which won the 2015 PEN Center USA Award for creative

nonfiction. Her other books include the essay collection

My Misspent Youth, and she edited the New York Times bestseller

Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision

Not to Have Kids. From 2005 to 2016, Daum was an opinion

columnist for the Los Angeles Times. She has contributed to

numerous magazines, including the New Yorker, the Atlantic,

the New York Times Magazine, and Vogue. A recipient of a 2015

Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2016 National Endowment for

the Arts Fellowship, she is on the adjunct faculty in the MFA

Writing Program at Columbia University School of the Arts.

Learn more about Meghan at www.meghandaum.com.

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Words of My Youth by Joe Mackall Analysis

Words of My Youth by Joe Mackall Analysis

In the memoir “Words of My Youth,” the author Joe Mackall recounts a moment in his life as he retells the events he experienced while growing up in the suburbs. Mackall wants the readers to know that there are always repercussions in life for choices that are made. Young children often make disheartening choices in life that they may have no reason for doing and they may not realize the effects of their own actions. If you are unaware that you are doing something wrong, ignorance should not be used as an excuse and one day you will have to face the consequences of your own actions.

If adults don’t think their children will pick up on the prejudices they say then they are wrong. While Mackall and his friend played Wiffle ball, Mackall notices a “kid-man” as he calls him smoking across the street. Mackall recalled seeing him before. Mackall ends up getting punched in the face for a slur he said about the kid-man’s girlfriend. “My girlfriend’s not a dyke,”(59) the kid-man says. In the first memoir, Mackall prejudges the kid-man first when he observes him smoking a cigarette. Mackall in his mind is thinking this is not a good sign.

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Somewhere most likely at his house Mackall has learned that someone that smokes is bad. It could have been his parents telling him that smokers are bad people. His parents could have said to him that they didn’t want Joe to hang out with smokers because they have a bad reputation. Mackall reveals that it’s true, he did call the kid-man’s girlfriend a dyke. However he has no idea what the word means or how it’s used in context. The consequences for him calling the girl a “dyke” (59) were brutal for a boy. It’s a shame that he picked up this word at such a young age.

Parents need to realize that children pick up offensive words and since they sound different, interesting or cool the children will repeat them until they get in trouble and have to pay the consequences. It’s a shame that his ignorance of not knowing the meaning of the word ended up getting him punched in the face by a violent smoking kid-man. In the second memoir describes another incident in which Mackall’s mouth puts him in the hot seat once again. The incident happens at the same place when Joe’s a senior in high school.

Joe called his Jewish friend a dumb Jew. Neither his friends nor himself whom where in catholic schools knew the term “dumb Jew” (59) was derogatory or why someone would call them that. As the boys were celebrating the new slur they realized that Jesus was a Jew. They figured it shouldn’t be said, but they say continued to say it. He gets reprimanded by his mother and she tells him to send his friends on their way, pointless however because they all scattered. Joe’s mother asks him, “What did you say out there? What were you saying”(60).

Since she questioned him so badly Joe decided that it such an awful thing to say. He vowed never to say it again because if his mother didn’t think it was an appropriate slur to say then most likely nobody would want to hear it. When a person offensively calls people names such as dumb blonde, it happens so quick that sometimes the person doesn’t even realize what they are saying. Derogatory slurs sometimes just roll off your tongue. Then she follows on by asking “Where did you ever hear a thing like that? That kind of talk? “ (60). Mackall closes the story while lying on the metaphors.

He relates with himself not knowing where he learned the slurs, to not knowing how a Wiffle ball will behave once caught by the wind. Not knowing the direction of the Wiffle ball reflects to life because the certainty of where it may take you, you may never know. Parents need not only to protect and guard their minds but the minds of youth also especially with all the wickedness in the world. Works Cited Mackall, Joe. “Words of My Youth. ” Writing Today. Richard Johnson-Sheehan and Charles Paine. 2nd ed. Boston: Pearson 2010. 59-60.

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my youth essay

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Will Young Americans Finally Rock the Vote?

After decades of research, we know how to get new people to the polls. we just don’t always do it.

my youth essay

To get young people to vote in greater numbers, accessibility and peer encouragement are key, writes journalist Jane Eisner. President Joe Biden with young voters. Courtesy of AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File .

by Jane Eisner | April 18, 2024

Twenty years ago, I published Taking Back the Vote: Getting American Youth Involved in Our Democracy . The book grew out of a personal passion: Once my oldest child was able to cast a ballot, I became fascinated with the potential and obstacles facing our youngest voters.

I delved into the lengthy and messy midcentury struggle to pass the 26th Amendment, extending the franchise to 18-year-olds. The first bill to lower the voting age was introduced in Congress during World War II—why should young people be old enough to be drafted but not old enough to vote? It had to be introduced 10 more times before it finally was enacted, in 1971.

The bill’s proponents expected the hard-won victory to bring a surge in youth civic participation. Historically, when disenfranchised groups such as women and Black people got the right to vote, participation levels increased. But the 55.4% turnout in the 1972 presidential race remains the highest ever achieved for voters age 18 to 29.

In my book, I identified several causes and short-term solutions, including ending gerrymandering districts (which disincentivizes voting), strengthening civic education, and making registering and voting processes easier. But I noted that enduring solutions would require voting to become a habit—a civic ritual, embedded in the American ethos. Every young person’s first vote should be a communal celebration, I wrote. If we memorialize proms and graduations, why not this rite of civic passage?

We’ve seen cataclysmic changes to the nation’s politics and civic behavior in the years since. Campaigns have moved online, and social media and misinformation have transformed the voting ecosystem. The youth electorate is far more diverse, and the nation far more polarized.

Still, the central message—now borne out by decades’ more research, analysis, and experience—has not changed. Accessibility and peer encouragement drive younger Americans to vote. A galvanizing candidate (Barack Obama, especially in 2008) or a hot-button issue (abortion in 2022) might help. But it is having the opportunity to vote that seems most impactful—and that varies greatly state by state, thanks to the U.S.’s highly decentralized election system. To get more young people to vote and make it a habit, we must dismantle barriers and disincentives.

Positive trends over the last two decades show the way.

The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, known as CIRCLE , is a nonpartisan, independent research organization based at Tufts University. CIRCLE has compiled youth turnout rates for midterm and presidential election years since 2014. When the group looked at midterm data , all but one of the 40 states tracked had higher turnout in 2022 than in 2014, though the path wasn’t all positive. In 2014, only 13% of 18- to 29-year-old voters went to the polls; turnout climbed to 28.2% in 2018, then slipped to 23% in 2022.

The uptick over the two presidential campaigns CIRCLE followed was more dramatic: 39% in 2016, 50% in 2020. But there were discrepancies among states. The lowest 2016 youth turnout rate, in Texas, was 28%; the highest, in Minnesota, was 57%. The gap between lowest (32% in South Dakota) and highest (67% in New Jersey) only widened in 2020.

Why? CIRCLE’s analyses suggest that election laws may play a central role. Consider: First-time voters must register, while established voters don’t have to. If potential voters move from jurisdiction to jurisdiction—and many young people are very mobile—they must register again.

States with easier, more inviting registration policies often have higher youth voter turnout. CIRCLE found that turnout over the years studied was 9% higher in counties that allow young people to preregister to vote before they turn 18. In 2020, youth voter registration was 10% higher in states with online voter registration.

Conversely, in many states with onerous registration requirements, young people simply don’t vote. Tennessee, Alabama, and Oklahoma do not have same-day, automatic, or pre-registration, and their youth voting rates in the 2022 midterm were abysmal—13% in Tennessee, and not much higher in the other states.

Voting rules vary dramatically across America. Many states loosened rules during the COVID pandemic allowing voting at home, and easier absentee balloting. Some never turned back. Eight states automatically sent mail-in ballots to all registered voters in 2022, and many of these boasted high youth turnout as a result. Data from the National Vote at Home Institute indicates that states with the most generous policies in 2022 had youth voter turnout at or above the national average. States with the most restrictive policies fell far below that average.

Another trend expressly targets younger voters—the growing number of states which require voter identification but won’t accept student ID cards. Permits to carry concealed weapons are often acceptable. Proof of attendance, even at a public university, is not.

This particularly rankles, because college campuses are easy and effective targets for mobilization. In a 2006 study , Elizabeth Bennion of Indiana University and David Nickerson of Temple University found that classroom-based registration drives increased registration by 6%, and voting by 2.6%. Face-to-face presentations worked. Remote outreach such as email, the researchers found, did not.

“The most effective way to mobilize new voters is to catch their attention and to personalize the invitation,” Bennion and colleague Melissa Michelson of Menlo College wrote last year, asserting that voting “is strongly shaped by one’s social environment.”

One might think that more and better civic education would enhance that social environment—I certainly thought so when I wrote my book—but research since then suggests that the results are mixed at best. Knowledge does not necessarily promote action.

Even the most creative and intensive voter mobilization efforts do not confront the underlying structural reasons why so many Americans, especially so many younger Americans, find no purchase in voting. Elections have become increasingly non-competitive in the last 20 years, often decided by a sliver of primary voters who represent the extremes and alienate the rest of us. The Electoral College sweepstakes anoints a few states as essential, and the others as throwaways. Even the fact that Election Day is not a federal holiday suppresses turnout. (Here’s an easy fix: Combine it with Veterans Day. What better way to celebrate freedom?)

The upswing of youth voting over the last few electoral cycles is a hopeful sign. Continuing the trend demands persistence, passion, and patience. The strategies to encourage more young people to vote are sensible, well-documented, and well-known. But 20 years on, I remain haunted: Do we, as a nation, genuinely want to welcome new voters?

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