Meg Jay

In her psychology practice and her book, The Defining Decade, clinical psychologist Meg Jay suggests that many twentysomethings have been caught in a swirl of hype and misinformation about what Time magazine calls the "Me Me Me Generation." The rhetoric that "30 is the new 20," she suggests, trivializes what is actually the most transformative period of adult life.

Drawing from more than twenty years of work with thousands of twentysomething clients and students, Jay weaves science together with compelling, behind-closed-doors stories. The result is a provocative, poignant read that shows why, far from being an irrelevant downtime, your twenties are a developmental sweetspot that comes only once. Your twenties are a time when the things you do -- and the things you don't do -- will have an enormous effect across years and even generations to come.

Jay is a clinical psychologist who specializes in adult development and in twentysomethings in particular. She is a clinical psychologist at the University of Virginia and maintains a private practice in Charlottesville. She spent her own early twentysomething years as an Outward Bound instructor.