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Walking across the stage on her college graduation day, Kiaira Wheeler felt like her life was about to truly begin. Growing up, her parents stressed that pursuing higher education as a young Black woman was the key to success. So Wheeler, now 23, gave it her all at Delaware State University. She excelled in the classroom, interned in the summers, and even worked part-time throughout it all — including as a camera operator for ESPN+. Now, diploma in hand, Wheeler could clearly see a future in which her industriousness would pay off: First, she’d work at her next summer internship and a part-time job to pay the bills. Then, by the end of the internship, the company would hopefully offer her a full-time production-assistant position. From there, she’d work up to a production assistant-manager role — a promotion she’d like to land within six years. By year ten, she’d launch her own production company. And, if all went well, one day she’d have her dream job: executive producer. She could be the Gen-Z Shonda Rhimes.
,But more than a year after she graduated, things are not going according to plan. The full-time offer Wheeler hoped for didn’t materialize — and she hasn’t had luck with other job applications since. “I had interviews every month and still did not receive a single callback. My sadness has slowly turned into anger, because I started questioning what the point of going to college was if I couldn’t even land a job in my field,” she told me. She’s been working freelance production gigs on and off and, this spring, took up an part-time executive-assistant role at a marketing firm as a last resort. “There have been times when I wanted to give up,” she said. “I would say that, for now, I had to rearrange my career path.”
,While Wheeler knows that she’s not the first creative to struggle to land a post-graduation job, she and other driven women her age agree: It has become increasingly harder for young people to get their professional lives started. College graduates like her are currently facing a 5.6 percent unemployment rate — the worst rate since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. They are graduating into an unstable economy, the explosion of AI, and a labor market that feels impossible even for people with decades of work experience under their belt. LinkedIn is full of job scams, and entry-level positions have largely evaporated — or are “entry-level” in name only, requiring years of experience that recent graduates simply do not have.
A decade ago, college-age women at the top of their class were graduating into the glossy corporate-feminism era of Lean In and “badass girlbosses” trying to “have it all.” With that fantasy thoroughly popped, I wanted to find out what ambition looks like to today’s young women.
,For this story, I heard from 40 young women across the country who are rising college seniors and recent graduates. All of them identified as ambitious with 80 percent viewing ambition as a positive trait. For the rest of the women, it is a matter of balance: Ambition can be a positive force that pushes them forward as long as it doesn’t lead to burnout or negatively impact other aspects of their lives.
,“When ambition is rooted in purpose, growth, and a desire to make a difference, it can motivate people to pursue meaningful goals and overcome challenges,” said Astrid Ochoa, a 22-year-old pursuing her master’s degree in intelligence and national security at the University of Texas at El Paso. “At the same time, I think ambition can become unhealthy if it is tied only to achievement, status, or constant productivity. For me, ambition is less about getting ahead and more about continuing to learn, grow, and contribute to the communities I care about.”
,This reframing of ambition as a matter of achieving personal fulfillment and bettering their communities rather than climbing the corporate ladder was a common theme among the women I spoke to. The days of the Girl Boss are pretty much gone. Only 27 percent of the women thought they were more ambitious than previous generations. Instead, 63 percent of them said that they are not more or less ambitious than those older than them; they just understand the concept differently.
,“I don’t think previous generations lacked ambition. My parents immigrated to the United States and built a life from scratch, which required tremendous ambition and sacrifice,” said 21-year-old Kathrina N., who graduated from Ohio State University in May and plans to become a lawyer. “What has changed is how many young people define success. My generation often values purpose, work-life balance, mental health, and social impact alongside traditional career achievement. The goals may look different, but the drive is still there.”
,The generations may be shifting, but the concept of “having it all” is still a source of anxiety for young women. You can thank social media for its endurance. Sixty-six percent of the women said that they feel social media pressures them into projecting success online, while 41 percent said that what they see while they scroll often makes them believe they are behind or inadequate.
,Wheeler, the graduate who aspires to work in media and entertainment production, is among those who detest the impact social media has on them. “I’m very happy to see online that the people that I graduated with got their own apartment, their car, their job,” she said. “But it also just makes me feel like I’m doing nothing. I can’t help but to compare myself to others.”
,What social media doesn’t show, however, are the unique ways in which other fellow graduates are struggling. Of the women I surveyed, only 20 percent had landed a job. Meanwhile, everyone else was either actively looking for one (34 percent), considering further education (17 percent), staying flexible about the future (12 percent), uncertain and spiraling about it (7 percent), or a combination of these options (10 percent.) “The job market has been so tough. It makes me question my worth and value in the world. I know I’m smart and have the qualifications, but the constant rejections have started to tamper with my faith,” said Fatima K., a 21-year-old political-science major who graduated from Tufts University in May. Though she wants to become a lawyer, she’s afraid she won’t be able to find a job and save for school. “It is making me feel really anxious and insecure.”
,It’s not surprising then that the rise of the tradwife has become increasingly alluring to some young women who’d rather opt out of the ambition-and-hard-work business altogether, said A.P. Porter, a 24-year-old writer currently working in strategic communications. Her generation’s coming of age has been marked by volatility and chaos — from mass school shootings and the acceleration of climate change to the COVID-19 pandemic and the political unrest of Trump 2.0. Who wouldn’t like the appeal of being taken care of? “There are so many people in my generation that are so driven to have a white-knuckle grip on their lives, and sometimes the idea of someone else being in control is a delightful fantasy that could be incredibly difficult to resist,” Porter, who graduated two years ago, told me. “The idea of being protected, of just having a couple of tasks under the umbrella of homemaking and child-rearing, feels novel and even whimsical.”
,But Porter, who grew up in a rural and conservative community in Idaho, says she knows better than to fall for it. “I saw up close how little control most of those women have over their lives, their autonomy, and their life choices — from the number of kids they have to what they’re eating for dinner,” she said. “There’s just all sorts of stressors of daily life that you see from a different perspective when you have proximity to that versus when you’re watching an influencer on Tik Tok or Instagram.”
,Ambition — that force driving you to become financially independent and therefore the master of your own life — is still worth it, Porter said.
,That’s where most women I spoke with landed. Yes, the current economic landscape and the country’s systemic issues are making it harder for them to go after what they want. And it’s also true that they may hit certain milestones — stable careers, buying a home, getting married — later than the previous generations, or not at all. But these young women are also acutely aware they enjoy freedoms that were hard-won by the generations before them and that remain under grave threat. Working at chasing your dreams and building the life you want is an act of resistance, in a way. To Ana B., who is set to graduate next summer, there’s no downside in doing so. “I mean, the world is going to end anyway,” she said. “Might as well aspire!”
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