Tri Pham
Marilyn Brock
English 102 Critical Reasoning
7 October 2013
Chasing the American Dream
The article by David Brooks, “It’s Not about you” discusses the folly of American society’s outdated belief of chasing after our dreams. Brooks criticizes how college graduates are encouraged to find themselves while chasing after their dreams. Once confronted with the reality of the job market, the graduates quickly become aware of the disparity between fact and fiction. He provides three primary examples on how society’s ideal structure, in the early lives of the college graduates, differs dramatically from the real world. A world, in Brooks’ opinion, “is unprecedentedly wide open and unstructured”. Brooks claim that the new generation of college graduates are essentially ill prepare for complications within the job market and as a result spend decades of their lives searching for “themselves”. Besides being hilariously blunt in his article, Brooks’ fine examination of American hypocrisy emphasizes an urgency to correct a serious problem.
Brooks’ “It’s Not about you” might seem a bit weak compared to other articles with factual evidences; however, it’s clear from a logical and statistical evaluation that his argument speaks the truth. Brooks’ merits are based on logic. It is evident that the top paying majors in the United States are engineers from the statistics available through employment websites and boards. College graduates are aspired to chase after their dreams; however, pursuing majors in Women Studies, Chinese Studies, or Sociology will end up working at underpaid occupations without relevance to their major. Although an abundance of majors are offered at universities, not all major provide the same monetary compensation. Though Brooks does not directly state statistics in his article, it is self-evident after analyzing the unemployment rates in the United States. Brooks is absolutely right in chastising the Baby Boomers’ theology of chasing their...