Dear Dave,
I just graduated from college recently. Is it a waste of time to apply for a job if you have a degree in the proper field, but no real work experience?

Daniel

Dear Daniel,
Absolutely not! The only sure-fire way to ensure you’ll miss out on a job is by not applying for the position.
Send a copy of your resumé to every job opportunity for which you have a reasonable chance of being hired. Then, when you get an interview, go in there with your head held high. Be articulate, enthusiastic, and carry yourself with purpose. Use your style, intelligence, education, and confidence to sell yourself and your ability to jump in, learn quickly, and get the job done.

I’ve met lots of people who say they have 20 years of experience. But in a lot of cases it’s more like one year of experience 20 times. That kind of “experience” is useless. I’ve also met many sharp, educated people without experience, but you can tell they’re the kind who will put their minds to work, think outside the box, and figure out a way to get the job done with excellence.

As an employer, if I’ve got a choice between the two, that’s the one I want on my team!

Dave Ramsey is CEO of Ramsey Solutions. He has authored seven best-selling books, including The Total Money Makeover. The Dave Ramsey Show is heard by more than 14 million listeners each week on 600 radio stations and multiple digital platforms. Follow Dave on the web at daveramsey.com and on Twitter at @DaveRamsey.

A classic song from “Bye Bye Birdie” asks “Why can’t they be like we were, perfect in every way? What’s the matter with kids today?” If you read those lyrics with the tune in mind, you are definitely well on your way towards retirement. Most of today’s students not only do not recognize that parody of Elvis Presley, but they are also clueless about “My Fair Lady” and “West Side Story.”

Grieving over the young generation has a long history, going back to the Greeks and Romans. But the changes in culture are accelerating. The Zeitgeist or “spirit of the time” is changing more dramatically as technology, music and clothing styles evolve ever faster. So we classify students into generational groups.

The Silent Generation is the cohort of persons born before 1946 and after approximately 1928. They are now 72-90 years old. Most grew up in the Great Depression. They are frugal, hard-working and do not waste food. Surviving World War II produced loyalty. And the G.I. Bill provided returnees an education. They were optimistic and expected their children to live even better, just as they experienced a better life in post-War modernization.

The baby boomer generation was born between 1946 and 1964. Colleges and universities expanded—and in some cases overbuilt. A high school education came to be expected of most. Larger numbers attended college. From President Eisenhower through Kennedy, the Cold War was ever-present but the race to the moon inspired many Americans. A series of assassinations ended the optimism and SAT scores plummeted. Baby boomers are now in the midst of retiring.

Generation X or “Gen-X” was born between 1965 and 1976 (or some say 1961 to 1981). Unlike baby boomers, they are more likely to borrow money and are less certain that Social Security will be there when they retire. By this time, both parents had to work to maintain an average standard of living; thus many came home from school as “latchkey kids.” No longer sure that their future will be better than their past, they are portrayed as more pessimistic. Some pundits have labeled them the “slacker generation.”

Some describe a Generation Y or “Gen-Y” for those born between 1977 and 1984.

But the generation that came of age after the turn of the century were the “millennials.” Born from 1981 to 1996, they are now 22-37 years old. Millennials are the first generation to grow up with the internet and smart phones. Nearly half are still living at home with their parents. If they marry, it is usually later in life. For many millennial boys, videogame addiction resulted in higher school dropout rates and extensive lack of employment.

The young students attending college this fall are the first wave of “post-millennials” or Generation Z. They were born between the late 1990s through 2010. While many remain “technology-addicted,” they appear to be aware of how isolating digital media can be and prefer to communicate face-to-face.

For over two decades, Beloit College issued an annual “mindset list” that described to professors the experience base of this year’s first-year college students—it will end after this year as a Beloit College product. It helped professors understand that these new students have always had a “phone” in hand that was both videogame and library. They have always had Wikipedia available and used emojis, etc. And Prius had always been on the road, etc.

To the teacher, whether K–12 or university level, understanding how students’ experience base is changing is critical to effective teaching. To communicate clearly and correctly requires common experiences that provide common meaning. When the next generation no longer shares experiences that were common among prior students, a teacher has to seek common ground through classroom discussion and exchanges, provide labs and field trips, and attempt to supplement the experiences lost to students immersed in a virtual or evolving world.

As a child, I remember the news reporting the death of the last Civil War child-soldier, who had lived past 100. Today’s students would now think of World War I in the same way. Boy, do I feel old!

John Richard Schrock is a professor at Emporia State University.

Does former CIA director John Brennan have a First Amendment case against President Trump for pulling Brennan’s national security clearance?

Definitely — in the court of public opinion, if not automatically in a court of law.

Our freedom of speech is most protected when we chose to speak out on matters of public concern; in short, when we join in “political speech.” We are protected against government censorship in advance of such speech, and from government retaliation afterwards, and even — though least often considered — also protected against being forced to speak if we chose not to.

So when Trump yanked Brennan’s clearance, while also threatening to do the same to about a dozen other former or current government officials, we all should view this with concern — the nonpartisan kind of concern, about constitutional rights, as tough as that may be to do in these times.

Clearly, Brennan is a vocal, frequent critic of Trump’s conduct in office: after Trump participated in July in a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Brennan said Trump’s failure to vigorously confront Putin over Russian meddling in U.S. elections was “nothing less than treasonous” and “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”

Brennan often appears on NBC and MSNBC — frequent targets of Trump’s criticism of the news media as “fake news” — where he is a paid contributor, and also he offers commentary in The New York Times and other cable and print news outlets.

From a First Amendment standpoint, none of those “credentials” would automatically justify government retaliation — paid, unpaid, on network TV or in a letter to a friend, political ally or foe, free speech protection still applies. And as yet, there’s no claim from the White House of some action by Brennan that would historically justify pulling his access, such as revealing classified information.

The White House has made some effort to counter free speech concerns. What Trump termed as Brennan’s “increasingly frenzied commentary” feeds into “the very aim of our adversaries which is to sow division and chaos,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said a day after the revocation — adding that such actions were “inconsistent” with holding a national security clearance.

But the president later said in a Wall Street Journal interview that, “Mr. Brennan was among those he held responsible for the investigation…looking into whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin” — which would seem to place things back into the area of attempt to chill the speech of those who would question or oppose him.

Such a flap over national security clearances is apparently unprecedented — but attempts by government to censor contrary speech are not. From action against war protesters to attempts to stifle the free speech and free press rights of civil rights organizations and figures, the First Amendment has repeatedly had to shield those whom government officials would attempt to stifle or frighten into silence.

Over the years, the First Amendment’s protection of free speech has been buttressed by a host of U.S. Supreme Court decisions dealing with direct and indirect challenges, from protests involving the U.S. flag, to Civil Rights era attempts to silence the NAACP through a demand for its membership lists, to providing protection even for inadvertent errors in comments about public officials and public figures.

It was in the seminal 1964 Supreme Court decision involving public figures, New York Times v. Sullivan that — in a bit of name-related irony — the late Justice William J. Brennan wrote of a “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide-open, that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on the government and public officials.”

Armed with those words, Trump’s action would seem to be out of order — at least in the court of public opinion. But in the actual courts, great deference is generally given to the President absent some specific constitutional restraint. As an example, see the courts’ reluctance earlier this year to limit Trump’s restrictive immigration regulations.

The aforementioned “division and chaos” rationale might well be enough for a court to turn back a legal challenge by Brennan — though if Trump extends the revocations to others without more justification than a link to the Russian election investigation, it would seem more vendetta than vetting.

Yes, Brennan has not been silenced by losing his clearance. But others less well off or more dependent on such clearances to continue in government jobs or work with outside contractors may well decide not to speak for fear of such “punishment.”

Our nation’s founders built into the Bill of Rights such unprecedented protection for free speech, because they had first-hand experience with a system stacked to prevent and punish critics of the Crown.

Those founders saw — as did Justice Brennan two centuries later — the value to the nation and to democracy of unrestrained debate and discourse on public issues in what has come to be called “the marketplace of ideas.”

Clearly, we need to hear from Trump, Brennan and former and current officials and government staffers on matters that are controversial. Let the comments — and tweets — fly, for us all to hear.

A good approach in the era of King George, and no less valuable in the time of Trump.

Gene Policinski is president and chief operating officer of the Freedom Forum Institute. He can be reached at [email protected], or follow him on Twitter at @genefac.

By RON WILSON
Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development

The bronze sculpture depicts a rider atop a rearing horse. It is a famous work of art created by Frederic Remington. One can find a copy of it in the Oval Office of the White House – as well as in the Kansas high school which bears Remington’s name. Today, the Frederic Remington Area Historical Society honors the legacy of this famous artist and others who lived in this rural region of south central Kansas.

Melvin D. Epp is a retired scientist, author, and president of the Frederic Remington Area Historical Society. This society’s goal is to preserve the local history in the area bounded by the Whitewater, Kansas school district, USD 206, which includes land once owned by artist Frederic Remington. Whitewater is a rural community of 718 people. Now, that’s rural.

Melvin grew up on a farm here. His family was active in the Mennonite church. Melvin attended Berean Academy (which his father helped found) and went on to earn a biology degree from Wheaton College, a master’s in botany from the University of Connecticut and a Ph.D. in genetics from Cornell University. Melvin Epp’s career as a botanical research scientist led him to St. Louis, the Philippines, and California.

In 1990 he moved back to Kansas. He ran the organic garden for the restaurant at the Riordan Clinic in Wichita and was named an honorary Master Gardener in Sedgwick County. He also got involved with the Frederic Remington Area Historical Society, for which he has served as president since 2007.

The high school in Whitewater is named for Frederic Remington because Remington once lived in this region. Remington had grown up in New York and shown an early aptitude for drawing. Horses were his favorite subject.

Remington traveled west and sketched a scene which became published in Harpers Weekly in 1882. It was Remington’s first commercially published work of art.

As of 1883, the wool trade was booming in the U.S. A friend of Remington’s convinced him to come to Kansas and try to make money in the sheep ranching business. Remington bought two quarter sections of land near Whitewater for his enterprise but chose to sell in 1884. He moved to Kansas City and eventually to New York for a career as painter, sculptor, and author. He was later termed one of our nation’s “great American painters.”

Remington’s first and most famous sculpture was the one he called “The Broncho Buster,” spelled with an extra “h” in broncho as was the spelling of the time. This sculpture has been called its century’s most popular small American bronze sculpture. After the Spanish-American War, Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders presented him an original cast of this statue in appreciation. As mentioned, a copy stands in the Oval Office as well as at Whitewater’s Frederic Remington High School, in honor of its namesake.

Melvin Epp’s great-grandfather married a daughter of the man who sold Remington his farmland in 1883. A display of information about Remington stands in the high school today.

There is other rich history in the region as well, particularly about the Mennonite church. Melvin wrote a book, The Petals of a Kansas Sunflower, which describes the migration of Mennonites from West Prussia to Kansas in the 1870s, due to government regulations requiring them to join the Prussian army.

Melvin’s mother, Marie Harder Epp, was born in America to these relocated immigrants. “My mother was the village poet,” Melvin said. “People would ask her to write poems to honor someone.” Her first poem was written in 1929 and her last in 1991. The book includes 103 of her poems and describes the changes and challenges faced by these German-speaking Mennonite farmers. The book is available at booksellers such as www.amazon.com and others.

More information about the historical society can be found at its website.

Today, casts of the famous statue by Frederic Remington can be found from Washington, D.C. to rural Kansas. We commend Melvin Epp and all those involved with the Frederic Remington Area Historical Society for making a difference by preserving and sharing this history. Their commitment is like a beautiful work of art.