A Cacophony of Career Choices

A large proportion — 72 percent — of presently-employed 2000 Princeton Baccalaureates entered the world of "services": either "financial" (34 percent) — including investment banking — or "other" (38 percent) — including consulting. Those service-oriented alumni significantly outnumber the alumni now in post-graduate or professional degree programs.

This decision of a career — one of the most important decisions that we'll ever make — demands critical scrutiny.

It is not implausible that the consultants and investment bankers have chosen their careers — at least partially — based on monetary considerations. It is also likely that many of the 9.6 percent in medical or law school have made their decision with similar concerns, although many surely balanced humanitarian concerns with concerns of personal wealth. It's safe to say that the 8.5 percent in grad school have not allowed money to seriously factor into their decision, although it's unlikely that their future prospects involve starving or freezing. In contrast to these stalwart souls, the medical and law students, consultants and bankers have chosen futures that promise a steady stream of fat paychecks. It's easy to appreciate the wisdom of such a course of action.

We all want enough money to support ourselves and our potential future families. We want them to have all they need, and we loathe the idea that our financial shortcomings may deny them their desires. If we have ever been denied for monetary reasons — and most of us have, since a child's aspirations are limitless, and no parent's wallet is — we remember the resentment with a slowly fading bitterness. How much money does it take to properly support a family? Probably at least as much as our parents earned, possibly much more. It's easy to see how one might think that the more one earns, the better one fulfills one's parental responsibilities, and therefore the better person one becomes.

Should we sell our souls, too?

The question is obviously pure rhetoric. It's an often-assumed sequela that choosing the path of bountiful monetary remuneration means selling one's soul. The assumed connection is that there is something necessarily unethical about earning heaps of money. Perhaps such a course is giving into avarice. But I employed this rhetorical device for a different purpose: it's not that big earners are committing one of the deadly sins, but rather that they're passing up a priceless opportunity to mold a life of selflessness and virtue. They could live for a cause of global concern, but they choose to live for the satisfaction of immediate desires.

I digress to note that the power and influence in money often seems to engender much greater charitable contributions, not lesser ones. The fact that many of the great philanthropists are very rich men attests to the fact that a life of riches is not one devoid of meaning. Yet we should ask ourselves two important questions: How much of the philanthropist's fortune was earned through exploitation (e.g., Andrew Carnegie and poor Appalachian coal miners) or unethical business practices (e.g., Bill Gates)? And, how much good could the wealthy business person have done had she or he devoted his or her special talents directly to benefitting others? The "give now or invest to give more later?" question is a non-trivial one, certainly. Regardless of the answer, we will certainly be better people if we keep a selfless ultimate purpose close to our hearts.

Rhetoric aside, our planet sports countless problems of monstrous proportions. Rampant internecine feuds, malnutrition, starvation, and corruption; life-shattering substance abuse, poverty-induced social helplessness, racism and misogyny; a global climate turned on its head and a biota with a snowball's chance in hell. A person looking to do good has no shortage of deserving targets.

Why should we — the nation and world's future elite — leave these crucial tasks to others? Are we not the ones best suited to solve these pressing issues? Yes. Why, then, does such a life seem not to fulfill our full potential? Because society has indoctrinated us to measure success in dollars: a practice we know to be a sham, but one we cannot shake from our subconscious. But the stakes are too high to go with the flow here. Let us be more conscious of how we estimate a person's worth. Furthermore, let us take a chance on ourselves and devote our lives to tasks we truly believe in, thereby bettering our world and bettering ourselves.

As you're considering your future career and how best to prepare yourself for it, consider this advice. Don't just choose a career. Choose a life — and make it a meaningful one. Kai M.A. Chan is an ecology and evolutionary biology graduate student from Toronto, Ontario. He can be reached at kaichan@princeton.edu.