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Unit 1 Active reading (1) / P3

Looking for a job after university? First, get off the sofa

More than 650000 students left university this summer and many have no idea about the way to get a job. How tough should a parent be to galvanize them in these financially fraught times?

今年夏天，超过65万名学生离开了大学，很多人都不知道如何找到工作。在这个经济困难的时期，父母应该怎样严厉地激励他们呢?

In July, you looked on as your handsome 21-year-old son, dressed in gown and mortarboard, proudly clutched his honors degree for his graduation photo. Those memories of forking out thousands of pounds a year so that he could eat well and go to the odd party, began to fade. Until now.

7月，你看着你21岁的儿子，穿着学士服，戴着学位帽，骄傲地拿着他的荣誉学位拍毕业照。那些为了吃得好、参加不定期的聚会而每年掏出几千英镑的记忆开始消失了。直到现在。

As the summer break comes to a close and students across the country prepare for the start of a new term, you find that your graduate son is still spending his days slumped in front of the television, broken only by texting, Facebook and visits to the pub. This former scion of Generation Y has morphed overnight into a member of Generation Grunt. Will he ever get a job?

当暑假即将结束，全国各地的学生都在为新学期的开始做准备时，你会发现，你毕业的儿子仍然整天窝在电视机前，只有发短信、上Facebook和泡酒吧。这位前Y世代的司祭盎一夜之间变成了咕哝世代的一员。他能找到工作吗?

This is the scenario facing thousands of families. More than 650000 students left university this summer and most in these financially testing times have no idea what to do next. Parents revert to nagging; sons and daughters become rebels without a cause, aware that they need to get a job, but not sure how.

这是成千上万家庭面临的情况。今年夏天，超过65万名学生离开了大学，大多数人都处于经济困难时期，不知道下一步该做什么。父母又开始唠叨;儿女们毫无理由地成为叛逆者，他们知道自己需要找一份工作，但不知道如何找。

Jack Goodwin, from Middlesex, graduated with a 2:1 in politics from Nottingham this summer. He walked into the university careers service and straight back out again; there was a big queue. He lived with five other boys all of whom did the same. There was no pressure to find a job, even though most of the girls he knew had a clearer plan.

来自米德尔塞克斯的杰克·古德温今年夏天从诺丁汉大学政治专业以二等甲等成绩毕业。他走进了大学就业服务中心，然后又径直走了出去;队伍排得很长。他和另外五个男孩住在一起，他们都是这样做的。他没有找工作的压力，尽管他认识的大多数女孩都有更明确的计划。

“I applied for a job as a political researcher, but got turned down,” he says. “They were paying $18000, which doesn’t buy you much more than a tin of beans after rent, but they wanted people with experience or master’s degrees. Then I applied for the Civil Service Fast Stream. I passed the exam, but at the interviews they accused me of being ‘too detached’ and talking in language that was ‘too technocratic’, which I didn’t think possible, but obviously it is.”

“我申请了一份政治研究员的工作，但遭到了拒绝，”他说。“他们付的是18000美元，这在租金后只能买到一罐豆子，但他们需要有经验或硕士学位的人。”然后我申请了公务员速成班。我通过了考试，但在面试时，他们指责我‘太超然’，说的话‘太过技术官僚’，我认为这是不可能的，但显然是可能的。”

Since then he has spent the summer “hiding”. He can recount several episodes of Traffic Cops and has seen more daytime television than is healthy. He talks to his friends about his aimless days and finds that most are in the same boat. One has been forced out to stack shelves by his parents. For the rest it is 9-to-5 “chilling” before heading to the pub. So how about working behind the bar, to pay for those drinks? “I don’t want to do bar work. I went to a comprehensive and I worked my

backside off to bar work. I went to a comprehensive and I worked my backside off to go to a good university, where I worked really hard to get a good degree,” he says. “Now I’m back at the same stage as those friends who didn’t go to uni at all, who are pulling pints and doing dead-end jobs. I feel that I’ve come full circle.”

从那以后，他整个夏天都在“躲藏”。他能说出几集交警的故事，白天看的电视节目比平时多。他和他的朋友们谈论他漫无目的的日子，发现大多数人都是一样的。其中一个被父母逼上了书架。剩下的时间是朝九晚五的“寒意”，然后再去酒吧。那在吧台后面工作来付酒水钱怎么样?“我不想做酒吧工作。我去了一家综合学校，我去了酒吧。我上了综合学校，为了上一所好大学，我埋头苦干，非常努力地工作，获得了一个好学位，”他说。“现在，我又回到了和那些根本没上过大学的朋友们一样的状态，做着无聊的工作。我觉得我又回到了原点。”

Jacqueline Goodwin, his mother, defends him. She insist that he has tried to get a job, but having worked full-time since leaving school herself, she and her husband find it tricky to advise him on how to proceed. “I have always had to work,” she says. “It’s difficult because when you have a degree, it opens new doors for you, or you’d like to think that it does.”

他的母亲杰奎琳·古德温为他辩护。她坚持说，他曾试图找份工作，但她和丈夫发现很难给他提供如何继续下去的建议。“我一直都得工作，”她说。“这很困难，因为当你有了学位，它会为你打开一扇新的门，或者你会认为它会为你打开一扇门。”

Although she is taking a soft line with her son at the moment, she is clear that after an upcoming three-week trip to South America, his holiday from work will have to end. He may even have to pay rent and contribute to the household bills.

虽然目前她对儿子的态度比较温和，但她很清楚，在即将到来的三周南美之旅后，他的假期将不得不结束。他甚至可能不得不付房租和支付家庭账单。

“They’ve got to grow up at some point. We’ve finished paying for university, so a little bit of help back is good,” she says. “The South America trip is the cutoff point. When he comes back there’ll

be Christmas work if nothing else.”

“他们总有一天会长大。我们已经付完了大学学费，所以能得到一点帮助是件好事，”她说。“南美之旅是一个转折点。当他回来的时候，就算没有别的事，也会有圣诞节的工作。”

Gael Lindenfield, a psychotherapist and the author of The Emotional Healing Strategy, says that the Goodwin parents have struck exactly the right note. The transition from university to a job is tough for parents and children: Crucially they must balance being positive and understanding with not making life too comfortable for their offspring.

《情感治愈策略》的作者、心理治疗师盖尔·林登菲尔德(Gael Lindenfield)说，古德温的父母说到点子上了。从大学到工作的转变对父母和孩子来说都是艰难的:关键是他们必须在保持积极和理解与不让孩子生活太舒适之间取得平衡。

“The main job for the parents is to be there because if they start advising them what to do, that is when the conflict starts. If you have contacts, by all means use those,” she says. “But a lot of parents get too soft. Put limits on how much money you give them, and ask them to pay rent or contribute to the care of the house or the pets. Carry on life as normal and don’t allow them to abuse your bank account or sap your reserves of emotional energy.”

“父母的主要工作是在那里，因为如果他们开始建议他们做什么，冲突就开始了。如果你有联系人，一定要利用他们。“但很多家长太软弱了。限制你给他们的钱，让他们付房租或帮忙照顾房子或宠物。过正常的生活，不要让他们滥用你的银行账户或消耗你的情感能量储备。”

Paying for career consultations, train fares to interviews or books are good things; being too pushy is not. But while parents should be wary of becoming too soft, Lindenfield advises them to tread sympathetically after a job setback for a few days or even weeks – depending on the scale of the knock. After that the son or daughter needs to be nudged firmly back into the saddle.