Having just started my second year of Optometry school at the age of 31 it has become much more apparent that I'm in a different walk of life and have a different outlook on life than most of the students in my class who are in their early 20's.

I love technology. The first time I heard of using a computer for anything other than typing a paper or playing a game was when I was in 7th grade.  (I used to go to a book to learn material to write a report on.  A real cut down trees and mill them into paper book.)  If my memory serves me right the first time I knew a computer could do other than those things stated above was when I had a teacher who helped a member of my class email someone.  This was so hard for me to imagine.  No body had to use a stamp and the person got the letter within seconds! It was amazing.  The next year I became a TA in the computer lab and got to learn about using the internet. All that information at your finger tips, it was just amazing.  I didn't have my own email address until the end of 8th grade.

My family has aways been a little slower to adopt technology so I guess it makes sense that while I love technology it also scares me a bit what it is doing to the world.  All the things technology makes possible, I can pull my phone out of my pocket and have a world full of information at my fingertips, some good, some not so good, and much terrible, uninformed or just plain disgusting. But it is what this technology has done to my generation that I began thinking about this week.  With so much information available instantly it has become so common for everyone to want to know everything, NOW.  The first day of class students are asking the teaching what the final is going to be like.  Has it ever occurred to them that the teacher hasn't written it yet and so they don't honestly know.  The teacher can't tell you the exact format and content of a test that they won't be writing for another few months. Sometimes we just have to wait to find out.  I remember when you went to school to learn everything you could to prepare you for the test, not just ask, and ask until the teacher breaks down and tells you what the test questions are going to be. (Don't get me wrong I love having an easy time passing a test, but I feel much more satisfaction when I was prepared for the test, not when I was told what would be on it before hand.

My generation has also decided that they are so important rules don't apply to them.  When a teacher wrote a syllabus it used to be how the class would be run. Period. I had a class last quarter in which the teacher asked the students opinions on one aspect of the class, from then on some of the students began to think they ran the class.  They would call the teacher out in front of the class to change the way the test was written.  What?! Isn't the teacher in charge of the class? Granted the fact that she gave the class a small amount of power to begin with puts some blame on her.

Failing grades don't apply either.  Several students failed classes. Not unusual, but what is unusual to me is that they fought the school on it enough to get a chance to take a shortened version of the class again to see if they could pass it.  In the beginning you are told if you fail you have to wait a year and join the next class.  Why should they do this, well they are millennial's and are so much more important. And you can't fail someone who tried, isn't trying good enough.  No! In some things maybe, but we are studying to be doctors here. People are going to trust us with there vision and in some cases their lives.  There has to be some point where we say you are just not cut out for some things.  I love basketball, made the team in high school and sat the bench the whole year.  I worked my butt off in practice but didn't get to play, why because I wasn't good enough.  I still love to play I just quickly figured out it wasn't going to be my career.  Shoot for you dreams, but sometimes you have to except that they are just a dream.

One last subject, how hard is it to follow a dress code.  Business casual or scrubs, seems straight forward to me.  But no, we have to push limits. Can we get away with a t-shirt instead of a scrub top, can we sneak some jeans if we wear a nice shirt.  Can we wear a romper that has shorts that barely cover our rear end.  Really?! Just follow the dress code! It won't kill you! You are training to be a professional, ACT LIKE IT!

I love technology and I love the perks of being a millennial, but I'm just not sure we are the next "greatest generation" as I have heard proposed.