I'll admit I'm probably taking this too personally, and taking too much of my own life experience into this (admittedly a poor tactic for discussion)...I just think you're painting things with an awfully broad brush. I'm married, house-hunting, have bills and financial obligations, and have a challenging job, and I still believe I had quite a bit of responsibility in college. If I ever end up having kids, maybe that will change that, but I don't think I'll ever look back at college as a responsibility-free zone.

It's not only you who has said it, and I probably shouldn't direct my responses only to you, but I just get annoyed by the whole "When you get older, you'll realize real responsibility" argument.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I just felt the need to respond with mine.

And, there is probably some of the "good ole days" syndrome working on my part too. I think we look back and remember mainly the good, but it seemed stressful at the time. I definitely remember feeling totally freaked that dues might go up $10 a month (how would I come up with that????) and feeling like there was no way I could be ready for those 3 tests AND get that paper done all in one week when I was scheduled for 30 hours between my jobs.

It felt as stressful in college as it does now, I'm sure. Retrospectively, it seems like the stakes are much higher now, with a dying parent, kids to take care of, a much more stressful and busy job, and a WAY higher mortgage payment. My mortgage increase this year (due to an ARM) is what I used to pay for my whole rent in college!

I think the biggest group that the compulsory service idea would benefit are those who don't go to college. There is a sub group of collegians that it would apply to also... the ones who flunk out because they didn't learn how to balance the good times with the responsibility. As GLO members, we learned that well. The folks who would benefit most aren't likely to be reading this board.

Noted, and now, I hope you will allow me to share my opinions without branding them as nonsense as someone -- not you -- did earlier in this thread.

One of the buzzwords in hiring or promoting management level people for the past few years has been "progressive responsibility." I think that means that as you gain experience, perhaps manage more people, bigger projects or a bigger budget, you also gain the skills and understanding to keep on progressing into more and bigger responsibilities.

In most businesses and the military -- which is part of what this thread talked about earlier -- more responsibility comes with age and experience.

Sorry, but how many thirty year old Fortune 500 CEO's do you know of? There may be a couple, but I can't name them.

That's not to say that older people are smarter. Some people are naturally more gifted than others. Brother John Elway wasn't a Hall of Fame Quarterback when he graduated from Stanford, though -- although the basic skills were there to hone. Nor could Colin Powell have understood how to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs when he graduated from West Point. (I think he went to USMA -- if not, change "West Point" to "college").

In school, you learn theory and basics. In business you learn how things really work. Isn't that why there are internships -- to learn how to turn theories into reality?

To rankle at the suggestion that greater responsibility comes with age and experience would assume that a person pretty knows all there is to know and is ready to tackle anything life or business has to offer coming out of school.

I just can't agree with that. I think it works that way in our personal lives as well.

Of course many of us have/had responsibility (and stress) early in life, but most of us continue to gain knowledge, experience and responsibility for many years.

Progressive responsibility means nothing more than a structured corporate environment where you hold your lip 99% of the time, others take credit for your work, and there is a level of bureacracy surpassed only in government halls in India.

The only thing I've come to accept is the phrase "Grind, Mind, Find". First you grind. You work your butt off. Then you mind. You start to think about processes and coming up with new ones. And then you find. You start to bring in business. The mind is difficult to do without knowing the business but it doesn't take decades to learn. The find is the only thing I do think age helps in because I can't work the magic of someone above me who dines with some CEO and his wife every Friday and then golfs with that same client all the time. It's near impossible.

And I'd love to know how interns learn reality. In 99% of the cases I know interns do nothing. There is no reality there and that dream they live is either a great one or a nightmare.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's not black and white. As much as age helps with experience, age also gets a free ride at youth's expense.

-Rudey
--Quick, write that line down...it belongs in a movie script.

I like the line. Nothing is totally black and white, and the age piece is cute. I'd just say there are a lot of folks who have spent a fair amount of their careers bringing along younger ones.

In most of the companies I'm aware of, holding your lip is a good way to be totally overlooked. Being the loudest and most obnoxious at the table doesn't work too well either. An internship is what you make of it.

Two thoughts about internships. First, I hope my doctor learned something during his internship. Second, in the the TV stations I've worked for, the bright, hard working interns are the ones who get the jobs upon graduation. That's assuming, of course, that there is a position open. An internship certainly isn't a guarantee.

My use of the word 'nonsense' wasn't meant to be dismissive of your opinions in general, but rather to point out that your conclusions did not follow what I thought your argument laid out - I think this was clear, and sorry if it was not.

These are cute concepts, but they contain some inherent contradictions that make it slightly difficult to use them as proof of your overall concept.

For instance, can't we explain almost all of these points by saying "opportunity comes with age"?

Rather than "progressive responsibility" I'll posit that these 'brilliant' HR people are simply promoting "progressive opportunity" - this is a slow, semi-efficient method of testing an individual at discrete points to ensure they succeed before offering increased opportunity to prove it at the next, higher levels.

It's a brilliant way of accounting for a slow, moderately effective method that also, not coincidently, prevents catastrophic mistakes in advancement at the low, low cost of efficiency (which can't really be measured) and a few who are underemployed and left behind. Think about it - this is just as plausible as the concept of "progressive responsibility" and passes the 'sniff test' (and Occam's Razor) perhaps more effectively.

I agree with the Powell example - that's a great example, albeit extremely limited by the fact that his current job carries infinitely more responsibility than anyone is generally afforded. I hate the Elway analogy - Elway was certainly not playing at his HOF-caliber highest level when he retired, either. Age diminishes some skills, as well - stress levels, outisde interferences, ability to rebound from long work weeks, etc . . . since we can't quantify these things, it seems like more wishcasting, or perhaps more specifically, shifting the examples to fit the desired outcome.

Some internships accomplish this - I think you might be somewhat skewed by the fact that your field (specifically TV) seems like it would have one of the steepest learning curves in this regard. However, I'm not 100% sure that applies to anything else - for instance, if a friend interns at Goldman Sachs, his 'theoretical' use probably shouldn't be different from actual implementation, and if it is then the utility of that implementation can certainly be argued.

I guess my point is that this can be true to varying degrees; however, again, I think most of this is learning, which is somewhat unrelated to what spawned this discussion if we remove your assumptions from above in this post - which I think are somewhat dubious, as laid out.

I agree with these points completely - but I don't think this is what most people (and specifically ksigkid) are doing. No one is trying to claim that wisdom is not achieved with age and experience - but more likely that this connection isn't all that applicable to the other points being raised.

Gen. Powell did not graduate from the USMA, he is an alumnus of City College here in NYC. It's not as if he was groomed for an officer career when he was in school.

Exactly - there seems to be an assumption by some in this thread that the issue is black and white, and it's not. By no means was I making the generalization that age and responsiblity had nothing to do with each other; I just don't think it's that cut and dry in many cases.

At times, it's lightly tossed around that younger people don't know responsibility, and I just believe people should think twice before making that assumption.

Actually, I think that, in a way, this underscores the importance of experience gained over a career.

Elway was named SuperBowl MVP in his very last game.

Nobody would argue that he was in his top phisical form at that age after having his body beaten up for years.

But he had the experience to know how to overcome those deficencies.

On another topic, thanks for the info on Colin Powell. I'm glad I qualified it in my post since I wasn't sure he graduated from West Point.

Without getting into a VERY nerdy sports discussion, I'd simply like to point out that this is exceptionally results-oriented thinking. While Elway was the MVP and probably the most important piece of that Broncos team, his contribution to that team's success (from a purely numerical standpoint) was certainly less than his contribution to earlier, worse Broncos teams.

Also, again, you're conflating 'experience' and 'learning', neither of which really address what spawned this discussion (although I agree that Elway did these things, and that's part of his legendary status).

It's up to you to determine whether this supports or assails your views, but I think we're way off the rails of this discussion anyway - just pointing this out.

Yeah, I agree. That tends to happen on GC I guess.

which is why i generally stop reading threads after about 30 posts...