<p>It seems so pointless how Harvard accepts students who have fiery passions in art, music, writing, and science and students who want to change the world through international relations and humanitarian efforts-- only to send half of it's graduating class into a life of pointless money shuffling. It seems that instead of educating the best students to become the world's best thinkers and problem-solvers, Harvard is just a feeder school for Goldman Sachs. </p>
<p>Has it always been like this? What attracts so many students to careers in finance and consulting? Also, on a similar note, why does economics top all majors at Harvard, Dartmouth, Princeton, and Penn?</p>
<p>Do you think that Harvard (or the other schools mentioned) “sends” their graduates anywhere those fiery passionate former high school students don’t want to go?</p>
<p>Should Harvard dictate to those fiery passionate former high school students their careers?</p>
<p>It’s pretty obvious, the majority of those “passionate” people entering the college were not actually passionate and basically gamed the system. In fact, I’d argue that it’s next to impossible to have all that an admitted student at one of these colleges (barring a huge hook) while actually being passionate. </p>
<p>When the United States economy becomes a place where an English teacher can make the same money an investment banker makes, this trend will stop. That’s all there is to it.</p>
<p>Well, then it does seem more than a little disingenuous for these colleges to expect applicants to demonstrate concern for others by volunteering in soup kitchens or building mud huts in Central America to demonstrate their well-roundedness. Why not just choose the most capitalistic teenagers they can find?</p>
<p>Front office purposes, want to look like they’re picking people who’re good people etc.
also, if one has the drive, tenacity, work ethic, and people skills to suck it up and jump though all the hoops needed to get in (perfect or near perfect grades, decent test scores at least, do lots of volunteer work or do EC’s, grab leadership positions etc), they are likely to succeed at any avenue they choose in life, and many of them choose finance, especially as Harvard has a premier reputation in that field (and it’s arguably the field where your college’s reputation matters the most). </p>
<p>I think adcoms are heavily tilted towards lib arts majors. I daresay few ex-consultants and ex-bankers (or ex-engineers) are doing those jobs (outside of b-schools/engineering schools, respectively).</p>
<p>They may also think that the more well-rounded consultants and bankers will be more successful or be more likely to donate to their alma mater if successful than the less socially-adept grinder types. Certainly, having good people skills is pretty important in both consulting and banking. Also, just looking at folks who have donated big money to schools I have attended (all folks in a business field of some sort, obviously), it does seem as if many of them do so because they had a life-changing/mind-opening experience in college which they give credit to their school’s liberal arts education for. Maybe those folks who volunteer a lot also are more likely to donate to their alma mater.</p>
<p>And personally, I believe that law (followed by consulting) are the most snobby when it comes to college pedigree. In finance, if you’re willing to out-work and out-compete and out-ball everyone, you have a chance of making it no matter what your background.</p>
<p>“But in the early 80s Goldman Sachs and others figured out they could broaden their net and get lots of really smart people if they made it a temporary position rather than a permanent one. So they created the two-and-out program. The idea is you’re there for two years and then you move onto something else. That let them attract not just hardcore econ majors but people majoring in other subjects who had a passing interest in finance and didn’t know what else to do. People now think going to a bank for two years will help prepare them for the next thing and keep them from having to make these hard decisions about the rest of their life. It made it like an extension of college. And it was genius. It led to this huge explosion in recruitment and something like a third of Ivy League graduates going to Wall Street.”</p>
<p>Interesting article, data10. But still sad.</p>
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<p>And I don’t completely buy the author’s argument. It doesn’t explain the huge decline in majors like English. Also, why are Ivy League grads so insecure? I thought these were supposed to be our most capable young people, ready to take on the world at age 22. </p>
<p>I won’t psychoanalyze thousands of young people from afar, although I do think there’s a fair amount of projection going on in the article and this thread. </p>
<p>The largest change in the last 10 years may be the increased use of adjunct faculty in the US university system as a whole. This dramatically decreases the appeal of attempting to become a tenured professor, as it decreases the number of tenure-tract positions. The prospect of abject poverty should do that. That changes the calculations about the risk vs. reward of attending graduate school. This is a good thing, on the whole. Yes, we need professors. However, we don’t need large numbers of “our most capable young people” aiming to pass through the eye of the needle.</p>
<p>Peace Corps, Teach for America, Wall Street. They all take in idealistic young people for limited periods of time. Some burn out. Some stay in the field. It’s not our job to stand on the sidelines criticizing them. Really, it’s not.</p>
<p>Well, gosh, if you want to get right down to it, no one who chooses to work after graduation could be idealistic, nor could anyone attending any professional graduate school.</p>
<p>Really, in today’s economy, only the children of the wealthy can afford ideals, by your definition. Everyone else has bills to pay, which requires working for money. Young people are perennially idealists, whether or not they can afford to be. I suppose, by your definition, no one in the “donut hole,” who needs to take out loans to attend college, is an idealist. </p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, where do you draw the line? Working for Wall Street–not idealistic. Working for the family bank, Bailey Building and Loan Association, idealistic? Or career-driven? </p>
<p>Young people with college loans to pay off need jobs that afford them that “luxury”. Its spiritual snobbism to say that you do not need money to live well (I didn’t come up with that, Camus did). Even as little as 20 years ago you did not need to be a banker to have an income to live in a large city and have a comfortable life. You could go into journalism, medicine etc. Nowadays sadly the salaries are skewed to such an extent that if you do want to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle, you almost have to have a banking/consulting job. Hopefully the pendulum will swing the other way soonish.</p>
<p>mhmm, trust me, I get it–I was a journalism major. And when I was a child my dad supported our family of four on the Upper East Side of NYC with his single income as mid-level ad agency executive. That wouldn’t be possible now.</p>
<p>Having said that, not everyone puts “living a luxurious lifestyle” above everything else. That’s the whole point. </p>
<p>I think it’s been shown in other threads that the statistic on grads going into finance or consulting only includes those who went directly into the workforce, omitting those who went to graduate school or professional school. If so, it’s not a very surprising statistic.</p>
<p>The premise of this entire thread is just wrong. What exactly is so sinful about going into finance or consulting after graduation? Do we not need investment bankers to raise capital for firms going public or for firms that plan to merge with other firms going bankrupt? Do we not need investment managers to help grow pension funds? Or consultants to advise CEOs of large corporations on their next business strategy? I would say these fields are probably the best to apply both the liberal arts education (i.e English & Philiosophy) and the technical expertise (i.e Engineering) from place like Harvard and Penn</p>
<p>Why do you automatically assume that large pay = greed/shame? Trust when I tell you that these jobs are high profile/high paying for very good reasons.</p>
And when I was a child my dad supported our family of four on the Upper East Side of NYC with his single income as mid-level ad agency executive. That wouldn’t be possible now.</p>