<p>An excerpt from Big Paycheck or Service? Students Are Put to Test
by SARA RIMER, New York Times, June 23, 2008</p>
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“I don’t think a lot of people at Harvard know what a hedge fund or a consulting firm is when they start.” DHAVAL CHADHA, who will spend the next year on a fellowship in Brazil
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<p>A prominent education professor at Harvard has begun leading “reflection” seminars at three highly selective colleges, which he hopes will push undergraduates to think more deeply about the connection between their educations and aspirations. </p>
<p>The professor, Howard Gardner, hopes the seminars will encourage more students to consider public service and other careers beyond the consulting and financial jobs that he says are almost the automatic next step for so many graduates of top colleges.</p>
<p>“Is this what a Harvard education is for?” asked Professor Gardner, who is teaching the seminars at Harvard, Amherst and Colby with colleagues. “Are Ivy League schools simply becoming selecting mechanisms for Wall Street?”</p>
<p>The answer is no. Out of seven friends of my S, rising seniors, not a single one is heading for Wall Street. Friends at other Ivies similarly not headed for Wall Street.</p>
<p>While I respect Professor Gardner as he is on the faculty of my graduate alma mater, I disagree. My child just graduated from an Ivy. She has no aspirations for the financial or consulting industry. I can only think of ONE kid she knows in her graduating class (that I am aware of) who is going down that path (though not in NYC). All the rest, if anything, are particularly interested in fields to make a difference in the world. My own kid is going into architecture.</p>
<p>I think a lot of young grads take these jobs because (a)they are relatively easy to get compared to interesting public service jobs; (b) lots of students have student loan debt and taking one of these jobs can help you pay it down more quickly (c) these jobs generally only ask for a commitment of two years and that's a good gap for people who want to go on to law or grad school. </p>
<p>One of my kid's friends went to Bain, but is now studying for his Ph.D. in economics. Another went on to grad school, disliked that, and went to law school. Those two years of a high salary reduced the amount of debt he accumulated during law school. </p>
<p>So, I don't think the fact that 20% of grads go into these fields means that 20% of grads will stay in them.</p>
<p>I was looking at a survey of employment sectors from 2005 of graduates ten years out of college from my D's school, Brown. While I'm viewing a bar graph, I will estimate percentages from it.....
approx. 34% had gone into private for profit corporations
approx. 26% had gone into private non profit organizations
approx. 20% had gone into government or public institutions
approx. 10% were self employed</p>
<p>While that was about their employment ten years out of undergrad, about 78% had enrolled in some type of graduate or professional degree program. </p>
<p>My D has lots of friends (all who just graduated) going to grad or professional schools. Some are doing non profit type work. Some are doing things like Teach for America. Some are doing research. Many are into fields that are aimed at making a difference.</p>
<p>I agree with the concern expressed in this article, and it's something we've experienced helping our S sort out his goals. The tug on quantitative kids is huge as they watch their friends come back from lucrative summer internships and get caught up in the competitive rush for offers from hedge funds, banks and consulting firms. (Columbia being in NYC obviously increases that pressure.) But the career office, course offerings, even some of the professors seem to assume that a job in the finance sector is what students want and should want.</p>
<p>My concern, which I've expressed here before (long before the current financial crisis), is that a society whose best quantitative minds are disproportionately devoted to developing new financial instruments is probably not healthy. </p>
<p>After we spent much energy counter-acting some of the pressures described in the article by advising our S to keep developing his mathematical and modeling skills and make a decision later about how he wants to use them, he chose to go on for a PhD. You can imagine how thrilled we were when we went to his graduation events and one of his favorite professors (econ) congratulated our S on his PhD plans by saying: "Great! Then you can start your own hedge fund." Sigh.</p>
<p>marite: My cousin the math PhD didn't even know where Wall St. was when he graduated from college (as a Physics concentrator). He knows now. He barely has a materialistic bone in his body, and didn't even think about a job in finance until it became clear that he was going to complete his thesis (and he really hated teaching). He says, "This work is interesting enough and fun enough that I would probably do it for free if I had the chance. But luckily I don't have to do it for free!"</p>
<p>what is wrong for a person to use his/her education to make a comfortable living. After all, the parents pay a great deal of money to raise the children and pay for their education. I would not mind some support from the highly pay children to take us into the middle class living condition. </p>
<p>As right now, we will be paying about $40K for DD to get a BSc degree in environmental science. I will be very happy if she would choose to get into one of those big consulting firms or go to law school. Making a difference in the world is nice but it does not pay your mortgage nor your student loans.</p>
<p>I have a Ph.D in natural sciences and we are struggling financially with ever increasing basic living costs. With 12 granted US patents, I have made some differences by those inventions. However, I am getting very frustrated by having to watch every penny every day.</p>
<p>Speaking from the perspective of someone who was inside the IB industry for quite a few years, I have to say that these roles must be pretty attractive to a least a good portion of Ivy grads. Bottom line is that many high-profile Investment Banks hire pretty much exclusively from Ivy schools for their plum jobs. And they tend to pay well. Now, current economic conditions are putting a crimp in hiring, but I assure you, those folks aren't lowering their sites and hiring SUNY grads anytime soon. Harvard, Yale, Penn, Princeton....that's the ticket.<br>
It is what it is. If the banks go to Ivies exclusively to fill their plum jobs - yes - then the Ivies do become "selecting mechanisms" for Wall Street. Of course, some Ivy grads go on to public service or non-profit concerns too.</p>
<p>I agree that the IB industry recruits heavily in Ivy League schools. My S's has gotten quite a few announcements in the last few years.
I do not think, either, that all college graduates should go into academia (like Howard Gardner) or into non-profit organizations or Teach for America.<br>
I do not have a bone to pick with people who would like to earn a decent salary. If one can do something that one loves and get well paid for it, why not?<br>
But I do think that the characterization of Ivies as incubators for the IB industry is overblown. That's why I instanced my S's friends. Several of them are in majors that would be attractive to Wall Street recruiters. But that's not where they're headed.</p>
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As Adam Guren, a new Harvard graduate who will be pursuing his doctorate in economics, put it, "A lot of students have been asking the question: 'We came to Harvard as freshmen to change the world, and we're leaving to become investment bankers - why is this?'"
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<p>No, Adam. a lot of students came to Harvard or Wharton or Princeton, etc... with well-paying jobs as their goals. Just read CC. They come out the same way. They are little different from the rest of American society. How many parents send their kids to college with the goal of seeing them can earn less than one year's tuition, room, and board?</p>
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In her speech, Faust highlighted the results of a spring survey by The Crimson, the student newspaper, which found that about 20 percent of graduates this year were heading into financial services and management consulting, down from about 22 percent last year.
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<p>Obviously, S and his chums belong to the other 80% Yay!</p>
<p>upon graduation all ivy league students should be encouraged to open used bookstores,...this would enable us parents to reclaim our attic spaces.</p>
<p>I don't object to kids wanting to make a decent living (as opposed to the obscene living hedge fund managers make.) But if we invested more in the physical sciences, maybe they could make a decent living as physicists instead.</p>
<p>I can only attest that in my S's case, he'd never heard of I-banking or consulting, before college. As I recall he went off with some intention to become either a jazz musician or a philosopher. Speaking of decent livings...</p>
<p>"As right now, we will be paying about $40K for DD to get a BSc degree in environmental science. I will be very happy if she would choose to get into one of those big consulting firms or go to law school. Making a difference in the world is nice but it does not pay your mortgage nor your student loans."</p>
<p>Exactly DadII. I'm not saying anyone should be forced into banking, consulting, law etc. but if a student has the basic interest and the determination and energy to work the insane hours that are required and the ivy degrees that are often sought, why shouldn't they? Why should they be made to feel bad for not choosing grad school in the liberal arts or Teach for America or whatever else. They're not responsible for choosing a public service role solely due to their ivy educations; they're allowed to have a greater interest in paying off loans, buying homes, building up some savings while they're young so that they may take on some financially riskier/lower paying jobs later on.</p>
<p>This is one of the most asinine articles I have ever read. Last I checked, this is America. People have a right to do whatever they want to do for a living. If you want to make a lot of money, great. If you want to teach English kids in Uganda, great.</p>
<p>... And what type of people do you think make the biggest difference in the lives of the poor and general public?
Rich people. They are the ones running businesses, providing jobs, creating new ways to improve the quality of life for everyone. And they donate. A lot. The Bill Gates Foundation has $35 billion in assets. That's 35,000,000,000!! Are you going to tell me that Bill Gates is selfish and souless for making so much money? In Pittsburgh, where I go to school, everything is named after Mellon, Carnegie, Schenley, Hillman, and Frick. They were/are the titans of Pittsburgh, and have donated large amounts of their wealth to make the city better. If it weren't for people like that who go into business for themselves and make tons of money, we wouldn't have anywhere near the large number of parks, museums, charities, hospitals, etc. that we enjoy.</p>
<p>And this just in: Americans donated a record $306 billion last year.</p>
<p>My Biology teacher said that at her Harvard reunion, every other person at her table was an investment banker, save one. That last woman was a gynecologist, one of the highest-paying positions in medicine. Harvard isn't "becoming" a funnel towards Wall Street--or at least towards the cash--it always has been one.</p>
<p>Could it be that the people who attend their reunions are those who can afford to and are courted by development offices?</p>
<p>But, you're right. Ivies used to be full of children of investment bankers. They're actually more diverse than they used to be. Pity the author did not notice.</p>
<p>investment banking, gynecology,..indeed these are but a few of many sordid roads to wealth. Delivering babies? Really, the woman should be ashamed of herself.</p>
<p>I didn't know anyone at Harvard who went into i-banking, but when I go to events at the Harvard Club in New York City it seems like half the people there are doing it. Same thing happened when I went to an MIT event for high schoolers. It seems the MIT grads who live in the NY suburbs aren't engineers! </p>
<p>Off the top of my head I know from my class or the ones plus and minus one:an Episcopalian priest and children's book author, an organist, a Lutheran minister, a business person (some for some not for profit), the governor of Massachusetts, three doctors, one of whom also writes novels, two physics professors, one biologist, a bunch in computer science, an architect, a best-selling novelist.</p>
<p>I read the article and I must say it takes an incredibly naive and cynical view towards the investment, consulting and 'wall street' industry in general. It's seemingly trying to present the false view that if you take up some low paid position somewhere then you're clearly in prime position to change the world for the better but if you're being paid a decent salary then you're obviously just in it for the money and will never have the opportunity to anything positive for the world. </p>
<p>Do people in these fields make a lot of money? Yes. Are some people (e.g. the author of that article) probably a bit jealous of that? Sure. Do those fields provide essential services to fuel the American economy (and hence people's jobs and well being)? Like it or not, absolutely.</p>
<p>Believe it or not people in these jobs actually do a heck of a lot more than sit around in some fancy office building contemplating what to spend their big salary on. </p>
<p>I really don't think most students go into those fields for the money. I think they go into those fields because they provide an incredible incubator like atmosphere for the best and brightest to be introduced into the top levels of the gears and gizmos that make up the American economy. That sort of career is very attractive to one that aspires to be a future mover and shaker. </p>
<p>Some may stay in those fields for their whole career and others will use that experience as a building block to start their own companies (to say perhaps solve our energy crisis) or use their leadership experience to head up a large non-profit or any one of many other top 'mover and shaker' type careers.</p>
<p>These students have found something they like doing and are getting paid good money to do it... so seriously get off their back. That fresh recruit out of college being paid a decent salary that the some are so jealous of might use the skills they develop in their early career to found a company that produces a much needed product or service and in the process creates hundreds or thousands of jobs that provide a decent living and puts food on the table. This is America... we're suppose to aspire and honor such ambitious individuals, not stab them in the back and write them off as being just in it for the money... geesh! ;-)</p>