Vertigo on the ladder to success

I was always a child who knew what she wanted and would go to any means to get it. An inveterate thumb sucker, I amazed my parents at age 4 by promising to kick my habit in exchange for a white plush cat I fell in love with in a toy store. Once the bargain was made and the animal bought, the thumb was never again seen near my mouth. The same decision and drive carried me through high school to Princeton, where I found myself for the first time eclipsed in this trait. While many of my classmates are eager to climb the corporate ladder, my motivation has ceased to point me upwards. More and more, I'm content simply enjoying the view from my rung.

A recent meeting with an academic advisor highlighted the natural consequence of my stunted trajectory. After asking me about the summer I'll spend in Beijing, she questioned why, given my interest in languages, I had chosen to enroll in microeconomics this semester. I wasn't sure how to answer.

My real reason for the decision — a feeling that I should explore the subject for my own general knowledge — seemed a flimsy excuse. Scrambling for an acceptable justification, I mumbled something about China . . . economic power . . . future concern.

"Oh," she said, "then you should take more economics courses and consider earning a certificate. It would make your Chinese much more useful."

It's suggested, then, that unless I'm learning a marketable skill, I've gained relatively little. But Princeton is not just a step on the yellow brick road to success, and lucrative is not synonymous with worthwhile. I want more from my time here than a resume and more from my eventual job than a paycheck. I would like to wake up in the morning excited to go to class and to enjoy the intellectual challenges of my work. I'd like to interact with inspiring people and every once in awhile be inspired myself. I find the browns and yellows of a sunny library more attractive than any monetary shade of green. I know that Wall Street, WalMart and corporate America are not for me.

But at the same time I'm not content with my decision.

The allure of dealing in ideas fades next to the ambition and absolute certainty of my peers. Someone I know is studying Russian in order to go into consulting. Another friend told me, not so jokingly, that he had the choice between law school and medical school. Since he doesn't like science and math he'll have to go to law school.

Being a professional student won't be easy at reunions time either, when the careers of former classmates will remind me how the path from Fitz-Randolph Gate could have lead to so many other places and tax brackets. I struggle already to choose the literature seminars over the science labs.

I'm torn between the scintillating and the strategic. I, too, have internalized society's idea of success, and it takes real effort to amend it.

My main goal now is to maintain equilibrium in an environment where if one's not moving ahead, then she's falling behind. It's hard to fight the pressure to rush toward the future, but the breathless blur of forward motion has begun to make me dizzy. The cure for motion sickness is to look to the horizon; the vertical causes only vertigo.

Because I still care too much what everyone else thinks, one word of warning: Just because I don't want to climb the ladder doesn't mean that gravity has pulled me down. Emily Stolzenberg is a freshman from Morgantown, W. Va. Her column appears every other Wednesday. You can reach her at estolzen@princeton.edu.