Don't listen to the doomsayers; new grads of NNY colleges will do just fine

The class of 2009 has just graduated from north country universities and colleges and is about to hit the streets looking for jobs and careers.

The odds, according to conventional wisdom, are stacked against them in a down economy. But I think they will be just fine, and so will the rest of us when these young graduates take over running the world.

According to reports in the Wall Street Journal and Britain's Financial Times, students graduating from university programs in 2009 and 2010 are likely to experience reduced earnings and narrower career options than those before them.

The economic crisis, the theory goes, is limiting demand for skilled labor and thus is limiting salaries and opportunities. Even after the economy recovers, these graduates will be trapped between layers of previous and succeeding graduates who will hold them back from career advancement.

The predictions call for at least 10 years for this to even out — if it ever does.

Those are grim predictions for the graduates coming out of Northern New York schools this month. I must respectfully disagree.

I have just returned from a two-week trip to Ukraine with 10 students from SUNY Potsdam. They presented papers on business and economics topics at an international conference and met with economists, diplomats, artists and investment bankers in Ukraine.

Having spent two weeks in close quarters with members of the class of 2009 and 2010, I have some observations to share with employers in the north country and around the world.

Comparing the students from New York with their Ukrainian counterparts was informative.

The Ukrainian students were a largely homogenous group of young, white economics majors from within 50 miles of the university where they studied. The only diversity was in gender, but even there men and women seemed to fill traditional roles.

They were worried about their future career options, but many were unwilling to move away from home or take significant risks to find better opportunities. They hoped their government would change and make improvements in their lives.

In contrast, the New York students were highly diverse.

They ranged in age from an 18-year-old freshman to a woman in her 40s — a lifelong learner who already operated a successful business and had years of management experience. Two were military combat veterans.

They were ethnically diverse, hailed from many different places, and usually combined the study of business with music, psychology, human relations or other interests.

Instead of being "tolerant" of differences among themselves or "sensitive" to different cultures, they considered them normal and drew strength from them. The issues of race, gender and ethnicity that my generation struggled with are behind this group. They have better things to do.

The research that went into their papers and the conversations they had with economics and business professionals in Ukraine showed the New York students that a corrupt and ineffective government was keeping a generation of talented young people like themselves from achieving their dreams.

The Ukrainian students said things like "What can one do?" or "They will never change." The New York students said things like "Start a revolution" or "Run for office yourself."

The classes of 2009 and 2010 are not passive and are not likely to accept an economic downturn or a bad set of government policies as a reason for failure.

The classes of 2009 and 2010 are natural communicators and didn't let language or culture become a barrier.

I told one of my students that it was good luck to see a Black Sea dolphin. "I know", he replied. When I asked how he knew, he pointed to a young Ukrainian student who I knew spoke no English. "That's what she said."

Youth, it seems, is an international language. I don't know how they communicated, but they did.

This graduating class is more at home with technology than any I have ever seen.

My students cracked the code on a dozen Ukrainian and Austrian network connections, dealt effortlessly with computer systems in different languages, and managed to watch American television programs on a laptop while riding a train across the Ukrainian steppe.

Technology to them isn't cool and it isn't frightening. It is just another part of the world they live in.

The economic crisis has been far harder on Ukraine and other nations in Eastern Europe than it has on the United States.

Many of the economists and business leaders we met were quick to blame the world's economic troubles on the United States and call for a lessening of our role in international organizations and decision-making.

Books like Fareed Zacharia's "The Post-American World" are popular reading among many intellectuals in Western and Eastern Europe, where many think that America's day is past and that a new order will soon emerge.

Again, having some familiarity with the graduating classes of universities in Northern New York and abroad, I must respectfully disagree.

Our schools are turning out students who are more competitive than their counterparts in most other nations. The American emphasis on critical thinking and pragmatic problem-solving over rote learning and respect for tradition is likely to serve us well in a global economy.

The openness of our society makes it easy to attract and retain top talent from other nations as well, and our current crop of graduates is ready to work with their counterparts from anywhere. The globalizing of the world's economies seems to be playing to our strengths.

American competitiveness in the 21st century is not likely to come from any particular government policies or the development of any technology. Instead, it will come from the graduates of the classes of 2009 and 2010 and the classes that follow them.

I frequently hear business people complain about the emerging crop of new graduates as being slackers with inflated expectations. I am fairly sure my father's generation said that about me, and his father about him.

The reality is that this group of young professionals is every bit as smart and hardworking as any previous generation, with better technological and intercultural skills than any group we have seen to date.

If you are a businessperson in Northern New York with concerns about how you will weather the economic storm and compete in an increasingly global economy, then I suggest you interview some of the graduates entering the work force from the colleges and universities around you. They understand what it will require.

If you need someone with recent international experience, I can offer some names.

Greg Gardner is an associate professor of business at SUNY Potsdam. His column on business issues in the north country is published monthly in Money Matters.