As tail-end Gen X, I do not speak fluent student. They can speak for themselves

How do you know you’re getting on in years? Answer: when you bring up The A-Team as a visual reference to student curators and writers posing for a cover shoot for this week’s edition of The Irish Times Magazine. It was a Saturday in the third-floor conference room of The Irish Times building on Tara Street, Dublin. Three of our remarkable curators and writers were posing for Irish Times photographer Alan Betson and I was asking them to channel … a glowering, gold-medallioned Mr T? It was all very Steve Buscemi wearing a backwards baseball cap in 30 Rock, pretending to pass as a teen, and that meme saying, ‘How do you do, fellow kids?’. (I did also reference Tyra Banks and smizing; I’m not sure it helped.)
I do not speak student. I can’t tell you about serving up lewks, rizz, slaying, things giving me life or sending me (yes that is the end of the sentence). This is not my generation (I’m tail-end Gen X) and they are not the phrases I use, at least not without looking self-conscious. But then again, as one of our curators pointed out, they don’t necessarily use those phrases either. Cliches about Irish students abound, and some of the most pervasive are also the most ridiculous. So, as colleges open their doors for another year, it makes sense to skip past the cliches – verbal or otherwise – and move to the students themselves. To ask them for their experience and what they believe is important. To ask them to tell us what to do, instead of just doing it ourselves.
For this editor, having students and new graduates take over the Magazine for an edition has been an experience that has been exciting, challenging, inspiring and mildly terrifying: take your pick. Over Zoom, in person, via WhatsApp and email, we communicated back and forth, engaging on different ideas. What came up as important themes? Generational stereotyping. New addictions on campus. Mental health, identity and anxiety. The question of how to make a difference to society, and improve it. The problems associated with AI. Interestingly enough, social media – something that has been an obsession for millennials and Gen X – wasn’t so much of an issue, possibly because these Gen Z-ers are the first generation to have been born with the internet as a constant presence.
There are four guest curators for this weekend’s Magazine (in print on Saturday): Jenny Maguire of Trinity College Dublin; Tess O’Regan (no relation) of University College Cork, Adam Mullins of the University of Galway; and Dorothée Karekezi, also of UCC. Along with their thoughts and creativity, the Magazine also includes the voices and perspectives of other students and recent graduates, including writing from Kate Henshaw, former editor-in-chief at Trinity News, and Molly Cantwell, former managing editor at University of Limerick’s Limerick Voice, and contributions from students at Ballyfermot College of Further Education, UCD, National College of Art and Design, Limerick School of Art and Design, and University of Galway.
Not everyone would choose to take on this task and put themselves out there. I’ve no doubt that you’ll be hearing a lot more from these voices in the future.