In the early 80′s, my mom came to America as an immigrant from the Philippines.  She believed that this country afforded her the luxury that her home country did not – the right to earn a living.  She believed that through hard work, networking, and perseverance, she would have the opportunity to not only take care of herself, but to give back to those whom she loved.

She believed in the American dream.

My mom, along with the countless others who came before and after her, made a choice to find success in this country.  As immigrants, they did not come expecting charity or aid from the government.  They came with no sense of entitlement.  Instead, they came with purpose and a work ethic.  They knew how to save money because they couldn’t afford not to.

Where is the American dream today?

When I look at the world around me, I see the fibre of America unraveling.

Adults are losing their jobs while soon to be college graduates are applying for internships.

College admissions is more competitive than ever, and the cost of a four-year program at most tier one schools is a $200K investment.

Students are graduating with more credit card debt than in years past thanks to an adult world that has done a pretty awful job of demonstrating how to manage personal finances.

Young people in this country no longer understand how to save as a result of living in a world defined by excess and loans.

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I was prompted to write this post after reading a comment from John Cass who expressed that “sometimes you don’t have to pay for interns, gen y will throw themselves at you.” After expressing my belief that employers must reward workers, I got the following responses directed towards me:

In my opinion, employers can afford to mentor AND pay their interns ($10-$15/hour or $500-$2000 stipends for the semester).  What I don’t think we can afford is to tell young people that it’s okay to not have a source of income.  I understand the value of professional networking and I understand the value of learning from experienced professionals.  However, I also understand the burden of being young.

To put things into perspective, when you’re in college, it’s not enough to have tuition and room and board taken care of.  Chances are, you need some kind of suplemental income in order to pay for things like a laptop, books, and lab fees.  If you’re in an urban setting, it’s virutally impossible to resist the temptation of eating out once in a while or purchasing a monthly subway or rail pass.  For those at rural schools, having a car is usually helpful and travel home during the semester can really add up.

There are leisure and recreational expenses to account for, things like spring break trips, movies, sporting events, fraternity dues, dance classes, and maybe the occasional beer or two (*sarcasm*).

Given these expenses, how can we justify an unpaid internship?  John was right in that I know tons of students who would jump at the opportunity to work for free.  However, the debate isn’t whether students will work for free or not, but whether they should.

In my opinion, free labor is the antithesis of what makes us Americans.

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In the end, we’ll all make choices for our own personal reasons and find ways of justifying either side.  Some students will choose unpaid internships while others will choose to work in jobs like retail, bartending, or mailroom envelop stuffing.  The former will benefit from corporate networking and training while the latter will benefit by working towards financial independence.

If you were a student or recent graduate in today’s recession, which route would you choose?

Photo credit: emdot

At a very early age, I figured out that it was important to excel at school.  My early successes were in the form of A’s on report cards and the satisfaction of never having my parents monitor my study habits.  As time went on, I then began to see the value of learning itself, something beyond standardized tests and college acceptances.  These successes came to me in the form of books and an expanded worldview; a new set of tools that would help me understand human interaction and endeavor.  Then senior year of college happened and suddenly, success seemed neither definable nor attainable.  It was due to neither lack of ambition nor lack of resources, but rather the fact that I could no longer define what success meant for me.

As I began to think about life after graduation, I would talk to my parents about potential career paths and then scan job listings.  May drew near and I found myself prescribing to a definition of success that was neatly packaged in the form of a job title and salary.  I desperately wanted to break free from this mindset, but I took a job in the meantime that would allow me to think about who I was and what I wanted in a very safe and familiar space.

I began working as a Staff Recruiter in Barnard College’s Admissions Office where I had been employed as a student. It was here that I observed the state of higher education in America, listened in on conversations between parents and their kids, and conversed with hundreds of students, many of whom reminded me of myself.  During serveral interviews I conducted, I often found myself frustrated as I listened to students describe their GPA’s, SAT scores, after school activities, and weekend community service hours.  They were all part of the same system that I had departed from, one that left me asking myself everyday, “I’ve done so much already, but so what?”

How was I, Alexa Scordato, supposed to change the world?  How was anything I had ever done in my scholastic past relevant to others?  I was now working with a blank slate and that realization was daunting.  After processing this reality, I put aside my past accomplishments and accolades and began to think about what I wanted in life and who I wanted to be as a person.  At the root of it all, I said I wanted the following:

• I want to help others.
• I want to provide for myself and those I love.
• I want to go to bed everyday feeling like I accomplished something.

I wasn’t sure how to go about achieving those goals, but I saw the potential within the world of social media.  Unlike most industries I had observed, I found everyone in the space to be happy, passionate, and well-intentioned.  Around every corner, it seemed like someone was always wiling to help someone, constant collaboration.  Although no longer a student, I was determined to school myself on everything there was to know about the social web. When I wasn’t in the office 9 – 5 or commuting on the Long Island RailRoad, all my time was spent doing one thing: playing on my laptop.  I was managing forums, teaching myself HTML/CSS, playing with WordPress, reading blogs, beta testing social networks, and listening to podcasts. All the while I was wondering how I could harness this interest of mine into a professional career.

Come spring, I departed from my job at Admissions and headed to Boston for two months, the mecca of what I believe to be social community at its finest.  It was a temporary experiment, one that I believed would provide clarity and guidance when I returned to New York.  I spent the spring inspired by folks like Chris Brogan, Bryan Person, Laura Fitton, Maria Thurrell, and Amanda Gravel, who encouraged me to pursue this route as a career path.  The rest of my spring was spent freelancing and working for incredible friends and mentors like Stephanie Agresta and Steve Rosenbuam.

After reading about Aaron Strout‘s Hiring and Getting Hired in a Web 2.0 World, I returned to Boston where I knew he would be speaking.  For many reasons, I wanted to work at Mzinga (more on this in a later post) and I followed Aaron’s advice on how to make that happen.  I polished my social network profiles, blogged, and followed up with him in the best way I knew how to – through Twitter.  It was only within a matter of weeks that I found myself packing what little belongings I had and moved into my new Coolidge Corner home.

Although there is still more figuring out to do, I now have a working definition of success that I’m happy with.  For me, a successful life is one that allows you to choose.  It’s a lifestyle where you’re in control of your destiny, making situations happen for yourself, and fully aware of how your actions can impact those around you.

I think back to those three organic wants of mine that I isolated last year and already I feel like I am well on my way.

In terms of my desire to help others, I’m in a position where I help someone every day.  In order for me to get this job, I had to write a memo that was titled, “Change the World by Helping Barry Libert.”  I’m now on a two-person team now where our purpose is to help each other and help Mzinga, theoverarching goal being to teach the world the importance of social communications with respect to business, technology, and education.  Words cannot describe how excited I am about what is to come as a result of this partnership.

As for my desire to provide for myself and those I love, I can officially say that I am independent.  Minus a few payments I have to make to my parents for backdated credit card bills, I’m financially on my own.  It is going to be impossible for me to give back what I have been given because I will forever feel indebted to them.  However, this is a start to what I hope will produce dream vacations and happy retirements for the two people I love the most.

Lastly, my desire to go to bed feeling accomplished is most definitely checked off.  Although I feel perpetually behind on the many tasks that I have on my to-do-list, working in an industry that I love allows me to feel productive every day.  Whether most people realize it or not, this for me is the root of why Web 2.0 is so appealing.  It allows individuals to think, create, and give – to produce content that showcases individual thought and share it in a way that collectively inspires and helps change the world, one post at a time.

How do *YOU* define success?

I feel incredibly lucky that I can answer YES to all of the above.  Can you?