Gen Z Is Taking ‘Adulting 101’ Classes Because No One Taught Them How to Do Life

They can edit videos in their sleep and build TikTok empires—but ask some Gen Z college students to roast a chicken or figure out a lease, and they’re turning to “Adulting 101” crash courses to fill in the blanks.

These workshops and toolkits, now offered at schools like the University of Waterloo and Toronto Metropolitan University, cover everything from how to fold a fitted sheet to what interest rates actually mean. Because for many young adults, basic life skills were never part of the lesson plan.

“I don’t know how to change a tire. I don’t know how to sew. I don’t know how to do a lot of things, other than cooking,” said Aldhen Garcia, a first-year student at TMU, on CBC’s The Current. “I think it’s so important that children are taught financial literacy. A lot of stuff involves money.”

He’s not the only one feeling unprepared. TMU student Bella Hudson said she wishes these classes were standard. “There are a lot of things that are missed in education about when you actually become an adult,” she said. “I do wish they had classes that taught how to manage yourself and manage your life.”

Gen Z Is Taking ‘Adulting 101’ Because No One Taught Them How to Do Life

At the University of Waterloo, that gap led to the launch of “Adulting 101,” a free online resource that helps students with budgeting, cooking, cleaning, career prep, and even how to ask for help. Director of Student Success Pam Charbonneau says students often arrive on campus overwhelmed and unsure where to start. “You see their shoulders drop when they realize there’s actually someone and something here to help me solve my problem.”

Psychologist Jean Twenge isn’t surprised. She says today’s twenty-somethings were raised with less independence and fewer hands-on responsibilities. “They’re less likely to learn how to do adult things as high school students,” she explained. “Then they get to university, and they still don’t know.”

Twenge links the trend to helicopter parenting, a disappearing home ec curriculum, and rising rates of young adults living with their parents well into their late twenties. Without early experience managing tasks on their own, she says, students hit adulthood feeling stuck.

Even worse, that lack of autonomy can fuel anxiety and depression. A 2023 Journal of Pediatrics review found that the fewer chances young people have to build real-life skills, the worse their mental health outcomes tend to be.

When I graduated high school and moved out, I always wished they had taught some actual life skills—stuff like budgeting, credit cards, and how not to shrink an entire load of laundry. Instead, we got trigonometry formulas and Spanish taught by a 60-something white woman named Mrs. Abernathy. So, maybe Gen Z isn’t helpless.

Maybe they’re just finally asking for the kind of education the rest of us always needed.