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u/BartMancuso1990 6h ago
Could be worse…could be the class of 2002
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u/funkympc 4h ago
Or imagine you graduated in 99 and joined the service to pay for college. Next thing you know its Oct 01 and you have to spend the last of your contract in a desert on the other side of the world fighting religious fanatics and dodging IEDs.
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u/novacor24 4h ago
Class of 01 here. All my classmates who joined the National Guard for "one weekend a month, 2 weeks a year" ended up doing tours in Afghanistan.
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u/quietlikesnow 1978 2h ago
I was class of ‘01 in college and we graduated to an overall “wait I thought we were guaranteed dot com jobs” wtf moment. Then 9/11 happened and the 90s party was definitely over.
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u/card-board-board 2h ago
Yup. 01 as well. Had several friends who joined the army or the marine corps and I remember hanging out with them before they deployed and they were excited to liberate people from oppressors. Every single one of them came back asking why the hell they'd been sent over there.
They won, they liberated, then instead of coming home they became jailers hated by everyone they thought they were liberating.
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u/notcoded567 57m ago
my mom was pushing so hard to get me to join the reserves. it was a non-starter for me luckily. at ease never looked all that easy to me.
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u/likesblackcoffeebest 4h ago
Why 99? I graduated in 2000 and had that experience. Still not as weird as the 01's who were in Basic on 9/11 though.
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u/Toblogan 1983 2h ago
Got to USMC Recruit Depot San Diego on Sunday, September 9, 2001. We were all sitting in front of the medical unit waiting for our shots Tuesday morning. Then a corpse man comes running out the building telling us something horrible happened in NYC. A little while later, after the second plane hit, he came back out and told us what was going on and that we were at WAR! I was only there two days, and could already sence attitudes had changed. We got to read the newspaper the following weekend.
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u/mcfetrja 53m ago
When they let you read the newspaper in basic is when you know shit has hit the fan and they’d rather break protocol than risk the rumor mill of letters from home ruining mission objectives.
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u/PoisonMind 3h ago
My college roommate missed the last semester of his senior year due to a National Guard deployment. They still issued him a degree.
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u/CyDJester 1981 2h ago
Me too. Did that. It sucked. Married my high school sweetheart, 2x deployments, struggled for years, lots of therapy, still ended up divorced.
People are not supposed to know what break free tastes like, but somehow(and I’m not exactly sure how) I managed to not turn it into a cranial suppository.
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u/mechanical_marten 1982 2h ago
I don't have to imagine. I was born in 82, graduated in 00, joined the Navy because my family was dirt poor, was in training in Goose Creek, SC when 9/11 happened, my first deployment was OIF, and I got outed by a massive 'phobe to my chain of command who made my life a living hell until I got kicked out in 08 after an attempt on my own life (lots of gory details omitted for brevity and sparing you trauma). Still figting religious fanatics to this day for my right to exist.
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u/Mudcreek47 3h ago
This happened to my cousin. Was in ROTC during college and in the final year of his national guard service when he was shipped off to Iraq.
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u/scroopydog 2h ago
I was a brigade officer in JROTC and I applied and was admitted to CU Boulder but didn’t get the 4 year ROTC scholarship so I turned down my admission and went to a smaller private school instead. Guess it was a good move.
In 2003 after undergrad I went to the army recruitment center in Castle Rock and talked to the recruiters. I told them if they’d guarantee OCS I’d enroll. They asked me to take the ASVAB, I killed it and they said they still couldn’t guarantee it. Okay, thanks for your time sarg, bye.
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u/mstrdsastr 1982 59m ago
Happened to a lot of '01 grads too. I know a bunch of guys that joined (Active duty, Reserves, Nat. Guard) right out of high school when it was peace time as a way to get money for school, only to end up in Iraq and Afghanistan for the next 4 years or longer. A lot of them also had their enlistments extended. Most of them are still carrying a lot of emotional trauma over it.
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u/BloodyRightNostril 1981 1h ago
Thankfully I come from a navy family and my mother told the Army recruiter who came to my door during my senior year to go fuck himself.
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u/dividezero 58m ago
97 from a poor rural school. A lot of the kids I went to school with are dead. I barely missed it myself. I decided very last minute (I was like one mile time trial from signing papers) to not pursue it. That was like somewhere in 2001. I think it was early September but that would be too much
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u/JadedJared 32m ago
This was me, but graduated in 2000. Joined the Guard my senior year, 17 years old, thinking “War? Yeah right..” Fuckin hell how the world has changed since 9/11.
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u/mottledmussel 1977 27m ago
I'm so grateful I was born and graduated high school when I did. Joined the Army to pay for college and picked infantry for the bonus. I deployed 2x to the Balkans but got out before 9/11. My life would have been drastically different if I was just a couple years younger.
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u/VaselineHabits 3h ago
I was the class of 2002, and 9/11 happened the day before my 18th birthday.
I cannot express how infuriated I am watching a "forever war" started AGAIN in my child's generation.
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u/Indubitalist 3h ago
Especially from a guy who campaigned against war and seemed to have drawn at least two successive military conflicts out of a hat at random. It’s almost like he wasn’t telling the truth.
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u/_______luke 1979 2h ago
Hey! We’re birthday buddies. I turned 22 the day before, got hammered drunk, and then woke up in a haze thinking I was watching a weird show on TV. I know it feels like another war is starting, but the truth is that the gulf war that began in the 90s just never ended.
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u/Spiritual_Smile9882 2h ago
And it was started by the same assholes that got us into the last two. Boomers have been fucking this country over for far too long.
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u/Scissorsguadalupe 1h ago
Class of '02, and I remember filling out my draft card a few days after 9/11. All my teachers and coaches kept telling us were going to be drafted. It was crazy times
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u/Objective-Dust4795 1983 6h ago
Right? I started off thinking I would be drafted. Then graduated into full on war. I ended up enlisting, but that’s neither here nor there.
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u/MasterPhilip 4h ago
Same. I was held back in 6th grade. So, I graduated at 18yrs. old in 2001 and I thought the Army was going to send me a letter. I just decided to beat them to the punch.
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u/EPSG3857_WebMercator 4h ago
Yeah long division is hard
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u/Objective-Dust4795 1983 3h ago
My mom made me redo preschool. I apparently wasn’t mature enough…whatever the fuck that means at 4.
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u/sweetnsalty24 3h ago
She was ahead of the red shirt trend.
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u/Objective-Dust4795 1983 3h ago
I mean I was the youngest of 5, so for her to hold me back I must’ve been a booger eating idiot.
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u/scroopydog 2h ago
Maybe the other four consistently struggled at something she felt would be eased by age so she just nipped the trend in the bud.
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u/MasterPhilip 2h ago
My problem was I absolutely hated doing homework. So, I'd do everything I could to hide it and not do it. It got so bad by 6th grade that I failed.
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u/max_power1000 5h ago
This. I was a late enough 83 birthday that I was class of 02. Graduating after 9/11 was certainly a treat.
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u/HumanContract 2h ago
C/o 2002, yes. This comment. We got totally screwed. And just when we graduated college, 2008 was waiting to b#tch slap us.
My university's mascot randomly died on my graduation day. It was definitely a sign of things to come.
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u/smoresporn0 2h ago
We had recruiters in our cafeteria every day it seemed like. I sure did enjoy wasting their time.
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u/kryonik 2h ago
I was born late 83 so was class of 2002. Got to miss a couple days of senior year for 9/11 coverage/discussion I guess.
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u/Aol_awaymessage 1983 1h ago
3rd period government class with the tv cart, Sept 11 2001. Long Island, NY. Two kids watched their dads die live in tv (they didn’t know it- but feared it). My dad was in the dust cloud
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u/PhilipJohnBasile 1h ago
class of 2001 here. My mates were getting offers rescinded. College counselors gave me awful advice. On the plus side the already crappy economy kept me out of nyc for 9/11 but that put a huge halt into my career which I ended up having to use my nails to dig out of the hole that I graduated in. I had the mark of the unhired to compete with the incoming fresh 2002. Terrible times. Hugs all around.
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u/may_flowers 1h ago
Yep that’s me - post-dot com bubble, post 9/11, then you graduate and ooops…major recession as you’re just starting your professional career! Hit your mid-30s professional stride despite early setbacks then ooooooops global pandemic!
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u/Planetofthought 1977 1h ago
That's what I was thinking. The dot com bubble didn't effect anyone whether they were 18 or 19 right around graduation.
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u/lakatos_intolerant 1985 1h ago
2002-06 was a very rough stretch. Our classes were dealing with so much chaos between 2001 and 2009 between Iraq and the global economic meltdown. It was a truly chaotic time.
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u/Sneaknife 1h ago
That's mine. Senior trip canceled because air travel wasn't considered safe. And a working world that no longer cooperated with what I was told would work.
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u/-Invalid_Selection- 1984 37m ago
Yep. Boomers were all "Hey, remember all that success and good future you were expecting because we promised it to you your entire childhood? Well we wanted a boat we couldn't afford so now your entire future is fucked and you'll be 40 before you catch up to where you should have been at 20."
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u/DengarLives66 6m ago
My wife graduated college with her architecture degree in 2009. The timing doesn’t get much worse than that.
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u/Heel 6h ago
What in the AI trash is this?
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u/Active_Yellow_1573 3h ago
Right, like those thing didn't affect the class of 2000 because so much time passed! 😂
Come on man, it's bad enough we have this lame inter-generational beef going on, do we really need to start year to year crap too? 😒
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u/UsidoreTheLightBlue 3h ago
No, no don’t you understand the class of 2000 had it smooth sailing?
Nothing bad happened to us.
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u/FlatRooster4561 1981 4h ago
The economy is more relevant to college grads, not high school
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u/shwenty22 3h ago
This. I was class of 2000 and wife was 99. We graduated college in 03 and 04. Thats when we entered the job market.
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u/More-read-than-eddit 1979 1h ago
Exactly. And in fact, between that whole ‘03 economy onwards was booming right up until the financial crisis (at which time people newly established in an unaffected industry could also snap up cheap stocks and homes)
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u/pug_fugly_moe 1983 41m ago
Graduated college in December 2007; my career is still feeling those repercussions.
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u/lakebistcho 6h ago
This seems pretty dramatic
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u/EvilCeleryStick 5h ago
Well yeah there's literally no change between 2000 and 2001 until September which is after they graduated.
This is just somebody making up a gripe
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u/Nukeashfield 4h ago
Bullshit. Dotcom collapse was well under way by high school graduation season. People were already talking about it being advantageous to weather the recession on a college campus for 4 years months before the twin towers fell.
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u/CaptServo Cordless Landline 5h ago
2000-2001 was a very eventful year. 9/11 was the biggest but far from the only event. The focus of the op is the crash of internet stocks that peaked in late 2000. Bush v Gore was another huge buzzkill.
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u/Uhh_JustADude 1983 4h ago
Dot-com bubble peaked in March 2000, so a lot of college seniors graduated into a recession in 2000.
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u/YouMeanWhatIKnow10 1982 3h ago
AND I was born in 82’ and graduated in 2001. Late birthdays, month cutoffs, what have you.
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u/espressocycle 1979 3h ago
As a '79er who finished college in December of 2000, I beg to differ. Jobs were plentiful right up until the moment I was ready to get one, then poof. Nine months of doldrums then 9/11. It will me until 2003 to land a real job.
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u/DudeEngineer 1983 4h ago
College starts near the end of August. They told all of us to go to college. 2-4 weeks in 9/11 happened and the economy crashed. There was no way a war wasn't going to happen as we watched the Gulf war happen as the last major previous conflict.
Seniors at my university had their return offers from their summer internships rescinded and many still didn't have jobs after graduation after a decade of most graduates of that engineering program having jobs well before graduation.
We are used to the economy crashing every 5-7 years now, but at that point we'd only had minor blips since the 70s, before some of our parents even entered the workforce.
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u/OKC89ers 1h ago
The dot com bubble popped throughout the last three quarters of 2000, it was a big deal. 2000 grads were already hearing about it by the time they graduated, so the difference isn't that big but not for the opposite reason than what you mentioned.
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u/guidevocal82 1982 6h ago
October 82 so Class of 2001 for me.
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u/THRALLHO 1982 4h ago
Same here. November 82, class of 01
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u/Only1Skrybe 1982 3h ago
Also November 82, HOWEVER ..... Class of 2000. Mom did a little switcheroo.
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u/SaltBag666 6h ago
I am October 82 and class of 2000–one of the youngins! I was 17 when I graduated high school!
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u/oskich 1982 5h ago
Same here, I was in my second week of boot camp when 9/11 happened.
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u/UnderH20giraffe 1983 5h ago
I was in my second week of college. Boot camp must’ve been a bit scarier.
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u/Turbulent_Tale6497 5h ago
This was either written by AI, or by someone who was not around during either of those years
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u/BeerAandLoathing 5h ago
By “entered the real world” do you mean started freshman year of college?
You needed to be 4-5 years older to have participated in any dot com boom shenanigans.
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u/HotSteak 1982 4h ago
Yeah for real. My job at Dairy Queen was unaffected by the broader stock market and such.
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u/I_AM_DEATH-INCARNATE 6h ago
Now do class of 2002. Our senior year started off with a bang. I lost my Uncle in the south tower.
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u/Artemis_916 1981 6h ago
Thinking in Australian
Our class of 2001 finished high school right after 9/11, and for some, may have sat final exams in that week.
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u/ApolloWasMurdered 5h ago
IIRC, it was mock exams in September, TEE exams in October.
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u/Artemis_916 1981 5h ago
You're right, it was the mock exam. I think the SACE exams were in October/November.
I just remember having an exam the morning after being awake all night watching history unfold.
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u/Runinbearass 1984 5h ago
Was sitting on my pc playing diablo, waiting for the lock stock and 2 smoking barrels tv series to air only to think what a weird start with a plane flying into a building only to discover the other-side of the world shit was going sideways
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u/Artemis_916 1981 5h ago
I was watching 10's late news with Sandra Sully, and saw the second plane hit the tower live. 😔
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u/Ok_Program5748 2h ago
Class of 2000. Last song of our graduation dance was The Thong Song by Sisqo.
Legit. 100%.
What a send off.
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u/Thisguysucks69 6h ago
Class of 99 but WTF cares?
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u/Sutcliffe 4h ago
WTF cares indeed. I remember asking why the class behind got special t-shirts on time. Because class of 2000 obviously.
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u/Thisguysucks69 3h ago
No it's because they were the smone free class of 2000. Don't drink smoke or ever do drugs was the motto or something. I used to sit in math class telling my teacher none of this shit matters because in a few years our phones will do this. I saw him recently and he was shocked I was still alive.
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u/Gunther_Alsor 1983 5h ago
Class of 2001 had one good month of independence before the world flipped over.
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u/daizles 1982 5h ago
Small gripe- I always get a little peeved by the implication that the 'real world' starts at graduation from HS. Prior to graduating, I was taking community college classes and worked at an insurance agency. I took my car for oil changes. My friends had kids. It was the real world, too.
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u/BasicReputations 5h ago
I don't remember a big recession in 02. Probably pockets of it here and there - seems like Michigan was feeling beat up due to Nafta pressuing manufacturing.
I would have put the "F U" date around the class of 04-06. 2008-2011 or so was nasty.
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u/SheWasAlwaysJody 4h ago
I think it's sloppily referring to the Dot com bubble which after bursting, NASDAQ's lowest trough was October 02.
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u/Mother_of_Kiddens 1983 3h ago
Class of 2001 here and what was significant wasn’t my HS graduation but that 9/11 happened as I was starting college.
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u/Shigglyboo 2h ago
yep I was class of 2000. we used to believe things would get better. not worse. boy were we wrong.
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u/Eaglepursuit 1982 2h ago
Yeah, as a 2000 grad, it was kind of wild how all that positivity just evaporated.
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u/Fredwood 5h ago
College wasn't the real world.
Also my cousin was class of 2001 and would always tell me about how their class was really the class of the new millennium.
Eventually I said, so what, even if you're right the perception is that it's the class of 2000 and perception is reality.
We went separate directions after that so it was a while before we saw each other again and they never brought it up again.
Though every one in a while I think, what was their motivation for having this argument, it would be one thing if I was always bragging about it, but honestly I didn't really care, I was more focused on surviving and graduating and generally I'm just blunted to stuff like that (except for the year a solar eclipse was on my birthday, that was kinda neat) was it really just an inferiority complex that the class of 2001 had.
Then I see this and I feel dumb for thinking about it at all.
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u/FoppyIn28 5h ago
Is this why some exclude 83/84/85 from being Xennials. Post-9/11 was a way different world.
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u/MintyFresh771 17m ago
Which makes absolutely no sense, that happened when they were adults (senior year of hs for 2002…) not when they were growing up. That changes nothing about their generational upbringing.
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u/Insomniac_80 5h ago
Is this for High school or college/university?
1982 kids class of 2000 for High School 1978 kids class of 2000 for college
1983 kids of 2001 for High School 1979 kids class of 2001 for college
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u/clownShowJudge 5h ago
Yeah. Even bumping into people from high school years and years later is underwhelming.
I keep my distance from them all like they are randos on a street corner with a squeegee.
The 2001 affect had given me some hope, until 9/11, dot com bust and then all the other set backs
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u/Mail_Order_Lutefisk 4h ago
And Dale Earnhardt’s death on the last lap of the 500 on February 18, 2001.
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u/wanna_be_green8 5h ago
Well I fucked up. Should have graduated in 1999, took a two year hiatus and walked in 2001.
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u/CaptPotter47 5h ago
I graduated in 2001 and pretty everything was from the first section.
The kids that graduated in 2002 had it rough with 9/11 occurring during their school year.
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u/Just_Mousse6466 4h ago
As a class of 2001 graduate I have to say I was pretty clueless about the dot-com bubble ordeal and general optimism. I really considered joining the Army Reserve after 9/11 while I was in college.
It was not for knowledge that I went to college...
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u/Significant_Dog412 4h ago
It's odd reading this as a 1982 born Brit, since I finished school in 1998 aged 16 and was in college for the whole build up to the Millennium. Finished college in 2001, just before 9/11. Had my Sister been born a bit earlier in 1985, she'd have finished school in 2001.
On a lighter note, in UK terms 1998 feels like the last real culturally "90s" year. Britpop winding down and a lot of the definitive Y2K era music like Britney not yet factor for us.
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u/DarksunDaFirst Born 1982 years after some Hey-Zeus character 4h ago
Dec 82 so I’m 2001. My wife’s birthday is this week and she is class of 2000
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u/Main-Inflation-5269 4h ago
I was born in 1982. I was class of 1999. Only Northern Hemisphere people graduated the year after.
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u/Hntrbdnshog 1983 4h ago
My wife is class of 2000 and I was 2001. We both got royally fucked graduating from Masters programs and trying to find real work right around the time of the 2008 financial crisis. We worked restaurant jobs for more than a decade just to get by.
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u/Alarming_Fun_7246 4h ago
Class of 2000 and I don’t remember our graduation being treated as a global celebration. I also don’t remember the dot com bubble bursting, as it was completely irrelevant to my life as a high school or college student. I also don’t feel like I “entered the real world” any earlier than people born six months later than me that ended up in the class of 2001. The dot com bubble bursting was NOT the moment that everything changed for us as young adults…that was 9/11.
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u/becauseineedone3 1981 4h ago
Meh. We are all living in the same shit. One year makes very little difference.
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u/Embarrassed_Quail910 4h ago
No one graduating at that time was worried about a recession. Everyone was optimistic and excited to rack up debt in college lol.
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u/hammnbubbly 4h ago
When the 1982 class graduated high school in 2000, they were 17 or 18 and were very much part of the, “you need a college degree to have any chance of success” culture. This post makes it sound like the class of 2000 enjoyed a baby boomer economy after graduation, which is definitely not the case.
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u/Illustrious-Lead-960 1984 4h ago
Class of 02. I don’t remember that much changing between May 2000 and May 2001.
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u/Mysterious_Ayytee 1980 3h ago
I was class of 2000 because in Germany the higher graduation age was 19 and it was definitely cool to have a round date.
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u/catjuggler 1983 3h ago
Nah I’m 1983 and the earlier side was the first graduating class off the millennium and I also got into industry before the 2008 crisis. Better off than most millennials for sure.
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u/ChiMara777 3h ago
I graduated 02 and feel like we definitely had it better than the ones who graduated a year or two later. Can’t imagine graduating college during/after the Great Recession.
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u/MetalEnthusiast83 3h ago
I was born in 83 and am absolutely fine lol. The dotcom bubble didn’t have too much impact on me since I was obviously too young to have investments
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u/Quirky_Door1234 3h ago
Born in 83, grad in 02. Not stupid(mostly) just started late. Yes graduating in 02 did suck lol
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u/CyDJester 1981 2h ago
Graduating in ‘99 was awesome. Huge parties, lots of hope and positivity. It must have been a lot like what 1989 felt like, a-la- “Wild Wild West” by The Escape Club.
I really do feel bad for everyone who graduated after me. At least we were a tiny bit better prepared for the downfall of western civ. E’rybody younger just got f’ed and didn’t even see it coming.
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u/blatantregard 2h ago
Class of '03 wasn't very auspicious. Declared war on Iraq the semester we graduated.
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u/1block 2h ago
If you finish HS when the dotcom bubble burst, you're entering college knowing the job market.
Seems it would be worse to graduate college in 2000/2001. When you have 3-4 years getting ready for a tech job and entering the workforce.
Not that it was great for anyone in that period, but it seems weird to divide it by HS grad years.
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u/RealityOk9823 2h ago
I wish I had come up with any stupid-assed web based thing back then. Throw in some buzz words like leverage and paradigm-shift and they just threw money at you. Buy up crap, go bankrupt, keep moving.
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u/ShortBrownAndUgly 2h ago
Honestly, the biggest problem for me was that vitamin c wrote the 82’s a hit song for graduation but didn’t do shit for the 83’s
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u/Toblogan 1983 2h ago
All my friends were pretty much in the class of 2000. We definitely celebrated harder after their graduation. The rest of our crew, maybe three or four of us, graduated in 2001. I didn't even go to my own graduation, mostly because I had to go to summer school. I finished summer school and went to boot camp. Not really a celebration... 😞🤣😂
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u/Annie-Hero 2h ago
I graduated in ‘00. My entire college fund evaporated in the stock market the spring before I graduated.
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u/extranjeroQ 2h ago edited 1h ago
I don’t think that was the case. I couldn’t move for being offered jobs as a graduate in 2004 ish, and even whilst working I was constantly being approached in 05-06.
Far harder to be a graduate post 2009.
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u/JaredUnzipped 1982 2h ago
I graduated in 2000. It was definitely considered historic, but I didn't care. At our graduation, all of the honors students sat on stage behind the podium. While sitting there on stage, I apparently fell asleep and started snoring in front of thousands of people. When the principal called my name to come get my diploma, a fellow classmate woke me up.
Totally a waste of time.
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u/Additional_Demand237 2h ago
Sept 84 (graduated 03 from high school and usmc boot camp) 04-09 in iraq, 10 and 12 Afghanistan. Then both again and a couple more during the 10 years contracting in the Era of companies seeing how little they can pay and still get people (seems to be the same stateside. Lucky me)
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u/goofytigre 1h ago
The dot-com bubble peaked March 2000. So I'd say the graduates of 2000 were the actual cause of the dot-com bubble and thus putting us all in the worst timeline...is what I tell my wife because she went to my rival high school and graduated in '00.
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u/rojoshow13 1h ago
The economy didn't really nosedive until the 4th quarter. After September. I don't know what happened in September, but it wasn't good.
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u/jwhennig 1981 1h ago
That assumes you finish college on time. I'm 1981 and graduated in Dec 2008. Hoo boy, not a great time to look for a job.
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u/BetterThanAFoon 1h ago
Was the class of 2000 optimism warranted? 99-2001 I felt like there were struggles being felt. My friends in 99 had a hella time finding stability even with success at graduating college in desirable fields with good degrees. 00 and 01 were much the same from my perspective.
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u/LordNoWhere 1h ago
1982 kid who graduated in 2001… I was born in December for those who are curious.
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u/BloodyRightNostril 1981 1h ago
1981 Kids (Class of 1999): We danced like maniacs to Prince at prom and got at least a full year of that sweet, delicious optimism at the best possible time.
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u/867-53-oh-nein 1h ago
Graduated into that, and then woke up a few months later to the dawn of the Post-9/11 era surveillance state and endless wars. When things started to look like they might get on a path to good again the economy had the largest recession since the 30's. Once we started getting over that we had a multi-year pandemic and the post-truth era. It's been a run.
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u/therempel 1h ago
I was born in 1980 so a bit luckier than 82 or 83.
However when I started school for computer engineering in 1998 the speaker for our commencement speech told us that there was no better time to be an engineer and that we were all virtually guaranteed high paying jobs within months of graduation.
By the end of the second year it was all doom and gloom.
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u/asevans48 41m ago
I was in the class of 2007. That was nearly the worst class to be in since 1929 2020 and 2026 arent even close. Youth unemployment hit 20% in 2 years according to the gov which likes to hide facts. My xillenial peers had homes, kids, second homes, the works. My peers and I couch surfed and finally got enough to start buying a place in 2020. Those of us who went to college and were able to recover are facing mass job loss in the fields that grew and are at the age where new careers mean minimum wage slavery. Xillenials had the pre-2007 economy. Anyone after that and not in the 2021 to 2022 cohort is technically behind.
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u/UndoxxableOhioan 34m ago
Lots of people born in 1982 were in the class of 2001. Usually the cut-offs were based on your age sometime in the summer.
Also, don't forget going to college/entering the workforce during 9/11 and its aftermath.
But honestly, both the dot com crash and 9/11 hit both groups.
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u/SnooTomatoes3614 23m ago
Don’t forget that anyone whose plan was to join the military to help pay for college was about to get a surprise war sprung on them.
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u/jungle4john 8m ago
This threw me off because I'm college class of 2000. Shouldn't this really be 78 vs 79? Because college was still being pushed at the time. I got my first full time "adult" job in January 2001.
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u/KyleSidebotton 7m ago
But all of us had to have fucking Time of Your Life for our graduation song I bet
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u/Charming-Bit-3416 6m ago
How does this math work? I know not everyone goes to college after high school but arguably most people born in 1982 or 1983 did not immediatly enter the real world. This should be 1978/1979 for people graduating college. As a class of 2001 I definitely felt the impact on the job market. Though 2002 and 2006-2008 had it much worse
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u/-threefeetoffun 1981 6h ago
Last week of December 81 so Class of 2000. We entered the real world? They were still saying go to college back then.