GoodWork Paper 5: GoodWork Among Dedicated Young Professionals

Author(s): Becca Solomon, Greg Feldman, and Marcy LeLacheur

Editor(s): Jeff Solomon, Series Editor

Media: Paper

Description: In the Dedicated Young Professionals component of the GoodWork® study, interviews were conducted with journalists and geneticists completing their training and similar cohorts during their first job experiences. Speaking with young adults at these early career points offered the opportunity to learn about how their training has prepared them for the realities of the work world and the challenges they face. More specifically, this report explores the responsibilities of these young workers, ethical issues faced in their work, and their perceptions of domain conditions and future opportunities in their fields. Where useful, the paper also draws on data from our core study of veteran journalists and geneticists to discern how novice workers may perceive the profession differently from their veteran counterparts. It finds that, while journalists across all ages described a decline in standards of their profession, they also demonstrated a keen awareness of ethics. And though the geneticists almost unanimously predicted a flourishing future in their science, they were less attentive to the fault lines appearing in their profession.