The flight of the Millennials in higher education

I only knew the generation of “Boomers” in US before I read this article. The author mentioned the generation of the Silent (born 1925-1942), the Boomer (born 1943-1960), the Generation X (born 1961-1981), and the Millennial (born 1982-200X), while in China we have the generation of the “Post-50’s” (born 1950-1959), the “Post-60’s” (born 1960-1969), the “Post-70’s” (born 1970-1979), the “Post-80’s” (born 1980-1989), and the “Post-90’s” (born 1990-1999). I am a “Post-80’s” in China and it’s same with the Millennial in US.

I think we classified our generation into every 10 years, because there was a significant event happened in China in each decade. In the 50’s, it was the beginning of the People’s Republic of China established. Because of the bad weather and the wrong decisions from the government, thousands of people died of hunger. In the 60’s, China went into the chaos because of the internal strife. In the 70’s, Xiaoping Deng, one of the Chinese presidents, proposed “the reform and open-up” policy. After that, the development of China’s economy has accelerated. In the 80’s, in order to control the excessive population growth, the Chinese government proposed “the One Child” policy. In the 90’s, China founded a state for 50 years, and gained very great progress in economy.

In all of these generations, the “Post-80’s” and the “Post-90’s” get the most attention and discussion. Because of “the One Child” policy, we are the only child in our family. At first, the mainstream society believed that the “Post-80’s” are spoiled, dependent, selfish, and irresponsible. However, as time passed, we proved that we can take the responsibility of our society.

Recently, people focus more attention on the “Post-90’s”, since they will take over the “Post-80’s” in future. But most of the “Post-90’s” let people feel disappointed; they are mammonish, unfeeling, and crazy about stars. But I believe they will grow up someday like us, and make a contribution to our society.

The importance of sport in society

Keith Suter (2010) said, “The games are a showcase of a country’s ability. Communist countries used the Games as a way of showing the ‘superiority’ of the communist way of life and therefore put a great deal of funding and training into preparing athletes”(pp. 333-334). It is kind of true, even though it doesn’t sound good for a student who comes from a communist society. Developed countries use the Olympics for profile, such as commercial, television rights, and tourism; while developing countries use the Olympics to show themselves.

On one hand, as Chinese, we are so proud of ourselves to hold such a big international event successfully, and the result was good. On the other hand, China may put too much money and energy on one “Game”. Like Keith (2010) said, sport can show a country’s ability, but do we want to replace the US in sport as well as economics? I hardly think so.

First, America and China have different sports systems. In the US, athletes pay for coaches or other related staffs, training ground, and nutrition. But in China, the government will pay all these bills and even pay salary to the athletes. Athletes in China believe that the sport is their career for their whole lives. An American who has a normal job in daily life may also be an athlete in the Olympic Games. After the 2008 Olympic Games, China began to change our sport system to be like developed countries. Therefore, as a beginner, China has a long way to go. If China changes their sports system to be like the US, it will be impossible to gain such achievement like 2008 for the following the Olympic Games.

Second, China falls behind the US in economics by about one hundred years. Over the happiness in the Olympic Games, China started to introspect itself. Should we need to put 42 billion dollars on a “Game” just to show ourselves? Even though the economic situation is much better than 30 years ago, in the northwest of China, there are millions people who fail to meet a certain standard of living. They don’t have enough food, don’t have enough clean water, and some even just have one pair of pants in the whole family, only the person who needs to go out can put on the pants. I believe China should spend this money to change their living condition, such as exemption from taxes, development of education, and new technology to provide clean water.

Introduction: Sport and Me

Hi, everyone! I am Yu Zhang. I take the sport and society course this semester. I will try to bring some different thoughts from another culture, try my best to absorb your ideas from the class and your blogs.

This is my second semester in BGSU. My major is Kinesiology, and my specific interest is exercise psychology. I plan to do my thesis proposal this semester, and start my research this April, due to I would like to pursue my doctor degree in future. This week, I began to help an obesity research which is conducted by Dr. Berger, Dr. Darby, and Dr. Carels. Kallie and Courtney, which are nice to me since we took the same courses last semester, are also in group. This is my first time using English to test the participants, but they make me feel less tense.

Sport is a part of my life since I was born. I live in a small city called QinHuang Dao in China, which has 3,000,000 people. We have a National Sport Training Center in our city which is my mom works. National top sport teams will be here for training in the summer. When I was young, I had a lot of opportunities to watch their play. These experiences and memories became a factor which influences me to choose my major in future.

After graduated from high school, I decided to pursue my bachelor’s degree in sport psychology in Wuhan Institute of Physical Education. Wuhan is one of the biggest cities in China, which has 9,000,000 people, and far away from my hometown. Most of students are college athletes in our university, and some of them are Olympic Champions, Asian Champions and National Champions. I had 48 classmates, which took the same courses in the same time for four years. That’s a lot fun, because we knew each other very well. But after graduated from college, only two of us chose to pursue master degree in exercise science, which me and one of my best friends,  and none of us chose to work in a relate area. The most important reason is exercise science is a new field in China, and it difficult to find a job.

However, after 2008 Olympic Games, the situation was changed. China changes their focus from elite sport to public sport, which means China will pay more attention to common people rather than athletes. The government has made August 8th National Fitness Day. Therefore, the exercise science in China will more important and more developed in future.