Literature Review 2

 
   "Lost in Transition" by Christian Smith is another book I will use to further develop my thesis on college no longer being the rite of passage toward maturity. Smith is a professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame where his research focuses on adolescence and emerging adulthood. He received his MA and PhD from Harvard University. This recently written book captures the current struggles of college graduates and how they fit into Smith's five major problems that young people undergo; confused moral reasoning, consumerism, intoxication, sexual liberalism, and disengagement from civic and political thought. Smith investigates the views of young adults through numerous qualitative interviews. Although he concentrates on the idea of soaking up their freedom while they're young, he also discusses their struggle in finding a meaningful place in the world.
     He has discovered through his intensive interviewing that struggles of emerging adulthood does not root from the current age period or from any of their moral failures, but from what their society supplies them with, or fails to supply them with, then it comes to resources needed for adulthood. Smith explains the concept of increased consumerism not being the fault of current emerging adults because they are simply following the teachings of society. He said, "Emerging adults have simply been good learners and now are eager to enjoy the benefits of their material abundance and consumer choice" (108). This excessive consumerism is due to the mainstream American culture.
    To further defend the current pace of young adults, Smith goes on to say how positive the effects of college education are on students. "Higher education serves a crucial common good in fostering breadth, depth, complexity, and richness in all social, cultural, political, and economic life" (Smith 101). He also goes on to say "What is ultimately the most important question about college education, is therefore, not what students can 'do with it,' in immediate and practical terms, but rather what college education does to its students deeply and broadly" (Smith 101). In this concept, he goes on to explain that college education expands people's horizons and helps them think about the big questions that face them. Rather than using a college education as a product or service for the future, he emphasis attention on how that education affects the individual's understanding. In connection to my thesis, I believe that this is the reason why there is a delay in the emergence of adulthood. Students are encouraged to get as much knowledge as they can. This idea of experimenting and broadening knowledge takes time to accomplish. This is the time that used to be used for settling down and starting a family. Now, it is used for self discovery and personal enhancement.
   

Smith, Christian. Lost in Transition.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print.