Careers at Princeton: The allure and drawbacks of elite jobs

Last month McKinsey & Company held one of the year's first recruiting meetings and, intentionally or not, became another part of the class of 2003's thoughts about life after Princeton. Many similar meetings will dot the rest of the year and many of us will attend, weighing our options and considering the future. We as a class will struggle to find a place in the real world, balancing childhood hopes of becoming astronauts or firemen with the responsibilities of paying bills and buying groceries, waiting for uncertainties of postgraduate life to become reality. It is both an exciting and intimidating time for all of us as conversations turn to future plans. But it seems to me there is an important issue that, while ever present in dorm room conversation, is not thought about or discussed in the public arena. Specifically, it is time to give serious attention to the dominating presence of financial corporations in the recruiting process and the overwhelming rush of Princeton undergraduates to take up careers with banking and consulting firms.

Since my arrival to Princeton, it's been common knowledge that many of its undergraduates join the financial realm every year, creating a kind of lighthearted, self-deprecating joke about Philosophy majors becoming I-bankers and once hopeful novelists heading to Wall Street. Whether we came to campus with visions of romantic lifestyles or simply uncertain of what lay ahead, banking firms have either given us an easy way out of following our dreams or preyed upon our uncertainties. This article is intended to, if just for a moment, reinvigorate those romantic visions and ease the fears of an uncertain future, in the hope that the philosophy majors will continue to philosophize, that the writers will not yet give up on their novel, and that those of us simply confused about the next step will not so readily take the first and most pervasive option presented to us by these companies. In short, it is a request that the most intelligent, motivated and talented young people of the country, armed with four years of growth, development and emotional toughness think twice before handing over their skills to the consultant firm with the sweetest package.

It seems to me that the best way to combat this phenomenon is to identify the reasons why Princeton undergraduates pine after these jobs and, in turn, offer a counterproposal for each reason.

First is this idea of the lack of postgraduate options. It seems as if we have postgraduate academia and professional schools, but in terms of real world jobs, what is there? How are we supposed to apply our motivation, our ambition, our knowledge? Well, we know there are consulting and investment banking firms because there is a new one on campus every weekend, and nearly everyone we knew from our eating clubs is now working for one. The fact is that these corporations have the money and the savvy to come to Princeton and recruit us, whereas the nonprofit groups and the countless other socially conscious organizations in need of qualified leaders do not have the resources to come here and present us with their opportunities. But the fact that they do not have the resources to recruit us does not mean they do not exist; creativity and a little extra effort must join with our motivation and intelligence to discover and pursue these options.

Second is the understandable desire of Princeton undergraduates (sharing this trait with the rest of the humans in the world) to have an economically secure lifestyle. There is no doubt an image of macaroni and cheese dinners and rusted old sedans attached to peace corps workers and second grade teachers, while investment banking carries with it the glamour of a silver BMW and a hard wood floor apartment.

The third reason is the vague and intimidating idea of taking on a position that will be socially beneficial or, for that matter, any job without a clearly defined ladder to climb or structure within which to work. Banking and consulting are readily accessible careers, whose goals are set up and knocked down in days, if not hours. Skills can be easily applied to problems, attention can be focused on one particular assignment. New employees start low but have the opportunity to advance via hard work, intelligence and motivation. In contrast, our perceptions of other fields are murky at best, and we fear wandering aimlessly from one nondescript job to another, especially if you have hopes of accomplishing social change. We have to face the unstructured and scary world holding strong to the things we have learned here, following one uncertain road to another, always questioning, always changing, always growing.

Fourth and perhaps most difficult to overcome is the naturally difficult task of giving up social status and an elite way of life. For four years we have enjoyed being the most elite college-aged kids in one of the most elite, unilaterally powerful nations ever to exist. It is understandably difficult to give that up. Who wants to go from telling their parents' friends that they go to Princeton to telling a woman in a bar that they are a second grade teacher? Probably not many of us.

These banking firms provide us a way to maintain our elite status in society by providing avenues to wealth and power that other professions do not. This can only be overcome by leading a life not based upon image, status, wealth and power, but on a love for what you do each day and a compassion for those less fortunate in the world.

This article is a request to the bright, motivated, and conscientious members of the class of '03 to consider their options this year. Investment banks and consulting firms are not the only outlets for our creativity, our energy, our spirits. They are not the only route to happiness. We have worked too hard here over the last three years, grown too much and learned too much to focus so much of our talents on only one field. Princeton has given us more knowledge, more warmth and more creativity than that. Rather, let us be excited about the freedom of expression that awaits us and be confident in our ability to show the world what we can do when given an infinite number of possibilities. Devon Peterson is a history major from Cheyanne, Wyo. He may be reached at dpeterse@princeton.edu.