Yes. No social media validation, no media addiction, no extreme competition, plenty of work opportunities, job without huge CVs or multiple internship, on the job training, decent pay and the simple fact that education meant work and decent life. Today even after PhDs, masters, gold medals, CVs, people are being paid in pennies.

Our parents (who are basically Gen X) graduated at a time when India was transitioning from a backward Nehruvian license raj economy to a modern, liberalised economy. This period led to a flood of jobs. Remember also that it was before the 2008-2010 global recession, Trumpism, Wokeism, social media addiction and toxicity, and of course COVID. These events have inflicted social, economic and psychological damage on Gen Y and Gen Z, but spared Gen X. So yes, plenty of jobs for everyone and life was good.

Yeah. Your parents had more fun. There was still academic pressure and competition because a lot of them had to work their way out of abject poverty and they had to do so when standards were pretty high. But young people seriously underestimate how bad social media and pornography are for young girls and boys. There are plenty of studies to show this. Couple that with polarisation in politics and the culture the way it is with this much self diagnosis of mental illnesses and fetishizing of therapy- young people are actually less free and more anxious than they have been. Jonathan Haidt and Abigail Shrier are the people to read on this stuff. Look your career will settle or take off eventually, you only get a little time to be a student- do something worthwhile with it. Cultivate your independence and allow yourself to think and speak and act freely, try and learn to learn. The rest will work out- its worked out for everyone before you and law schools dont really let their students fail- youll be okay.

I graduated law school 7 years ago. There was a guy during my time there who didnt have a phone,who didnt bother with social media, if you wanted to be friends with him you had to do it face to face and if you wanted to pick an argument- you had to do that face to face too. Hed check his email like twice a day and ignore all that spam. He was the only dude in the entire university to be that way,and honestly he was the most calm and together person then and he has a great career now. I wish I had had the wisdom to do things like him back then- but it might not be too late for you.

Speaking as someone in that age group (maybe a bit younger but very much of that generation), who was in one of the early NLS batches - social media is a cancer and I'm very glad we didn't have that, or mobile phones, or Internet, and wrote projects out by hand (if you wanted to talk to your parents you had to go to the PCO in Nagarbhavi and call them and they had to call the hostel phone and pray you heard when whoever answered shouted out your name).

We spent a lot more time reading, virtually zero time online and a LOT more time hanging out with each other and talking and getting into trouble (although the kind of stories I can tell about some of the high and mighty law firm senior partners and advocates and judges of today and what they did in the 1990s is hilarious). Those are undoubtedly good things.

However, it's a joke to say competition and academic pressure were lower - if anything, they were higher, and there were far fewer opportunities after law school etc. There was also simply much less access to information - everything from exercising and the gym to politics, to how to get jobs and do well at interviews - only now we've gone to the opposite extreme.

Please don’t be ridiculous. Our parents grew up in a very backward time: socially, economically, culturally and technologically. Life was really miserable then. Be thankful that we have so many advantages that our parents did not have. Never in your wildest dreams do you want to swap your college life with your parents College life.