6.1. PROGRAMMED LIVES

Saylor's upbringing is more the exception. Overly involved parents have caused many millennials to become highly dependent on directions and afraid of uncertainty and independent decision making. The so-called helicopter parents have been calling most of the shots from childhood through the college application process. They have programmed their kids' lives very carefully, filling every waking moment with play dates, music lessons, sports practices, tutors, and other structured activities. Millennials didn't have to be creative to fill their free time; there wasn't any. As for resolving problems and challenges in the classroom or on the playing field, parents typically intervened with teachers and coaches.

In school, millennials also have become accustomed to explicit directions. They have been taught very rigidly with detailed test guides and formulaic writing exercises so that they would score well on state achievement tests and college entrance exams. Teachers give them "rubrics" that spell out not only exactly what they're required to do for a project but also precisely how many points they will receive for each part that they get right—10 points for spelling and grammar, 25 points for written content, 15 points for the bibliography, and on and on. Teachers even include writing your name and the date as a project step so that students don't forget. What's more, teachers might award a couple of points for getting your own name and the date correct. Although these classroom rubrics give students precise checkpoints so that they understand exactly what's expected of them, such detailed guides can become a crutch that makes them overly dependent on specific instructions.

"Students were raised being told, 'Here's what's important and will be on the test,' rather than, 'We'll teach you the skills for how to think,'" says Marshall Pattie, director of student affairs at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. He says students come into his office wanting to know how "everything will fit together, how all the different classes relate to one another, and how they will fit together in their life experience. They are really challenged by ambiguity and how to figure out how to fit things together."

Even after going away to college, millennials often experience little real autonomy and do little independent thinking because of being constantly connected by cell phone and text messaging to family and friends for advice and support. They also come to rely excessively on their professors and counselors for even the simplest decisions. Students pester professors with e-mail messages because they can't figure out how to tackle a writing assignment or can't decide something as elementary as which kind of notebook to buy for class.

"I get these looks of confusion and 'What do I do now?' if an assignment isn't completely straightforward," complains Jack Appleman, who teaches a media writing course at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey. "They're unnerved when something is confusing and become impatient to fully understand everything right away. I think that sometimes they're just too lazy to think." Most millennials aren't lazy; in fact, many have had much more homework during their school years than previous generations and have still made the high honor roll. But there's no denying that they often need and expect an undue amount of detailed guidance and support to get that homework done.

The need for direction isn't limited to class work. When some college students travel abroad, they treat professors like travel agents. That's how Faith Beasley, associate professor of French at Dartmouth College, feels sometimes. When a student arrived in Paris a day early, he sent her an e-mail asking for hotel recommendations. She politely suggested he consult the Internet or buy a tour book. He quickly e-mailed back and asked her to recommend specific online travel sites and books. She wrote back, "I'm not your travel agent. If you can't be more independent, I don't think you should be going to Paris." Offended, he shot back another message saying, "I thought you said you would be helpful."

So it goes these days for Beasley, who observes that it's a strain for even high achievers in the millennial generation to think independently and creatively. "They have a very hard time with literature courses where it's not mapped out and there are no right answers," she says. "They find it extremely frustrating that I can't give them an outline."

Admissions and career services offices also are dealing with many more checklist kids. Career services directors say millennial students find job searches taxing and often require extra support in making choices. Some schools are even hiring additional employees to provide more personalized career counseling to millennials. "Today's students very much want step-by-step checklists of how to find a job," says Jeffrey Rice, head of M.B.A. career services at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University. "So we give them a marketing plan and help them identify their strengths and the companies they are going to focus on in their search." When Rice takes students toWall Street firms in New York City for interviews, he makes sure to give them a few basic rules on how to behave ("Stand up when the managing partner walks in the room" and "Use coasters for your drinks because you'll be sitting around a $50,000 conference table.")

The demand for direction can be a bit overwhelming. Jim Beirne, associate dean and director of the career center at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, finds the requests for information very time consuming. "More than in the past, I am finding millennials asking for very straightforward, step-by-step directions, then after proceeding diligently through the steps, coming back shortly afterward, asking for the next level of step-by-step instructions," he says. "I sense a much deeper need for millennials to build parent-like relationship with our advisers."

Some college officials worry about students' lack of resourcefulness and wonder how they will cope in the workplace. Peter Johnson, M.B.A. admissions director at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, was amazed when a young man called to ask whether summer work counted as professional experience. "I would never call and ask an admissions director something like that," he says. "It shows lack of initiative because the information is readily available elsewhere. My concern is whether some of these young people are ready to solve business problems."