At Harvard, a graduating senior, who handed on a full scholarship to a different college, advised me that he felt immense strain to point out his dad and mom that their $400,000 funding in his Harvard training would enable him to get the type of job the place he may make one million {dollars} a 12 months. Upon commencement, he’ll be a part of the personal fairness agency Blackstone, the place, he believes, he’ll be taught and obtain extra in six years than 30 years in a public-service-oriented group.
One other pupil, from Uruguay, who spent his second summer time in a row training case research in preparation for administration consulting internship interviews, advised me that everybody arrived on campus hoping to vary the world. However what they be taught at Harvard, he stated, is that truly doing something significant is simply too arduous. Folks quit on their desires, he advised me, and determine they could as properly generate profits. Another person advised me it was widespread at events to listen to their friends say they only need to promote out.
“There’s undoubtedly a herd mentality,” Joshua Parker, a 21-year-old Harvard junior from Oahu, stated. “If you happen to’re not doing finance or tech, it will probably really feel such as you’re doing one thing fallacious.”
As a freshman, he deliberate to main in environmental engineering. As a sophomore, he switched to economics, becoming a member of 5 of his six roommates. A kind of roommates advised me that he hoped to run a hedge fund by the point he was in his 30s. Earlier than that, he wished to earn a great wage, which he outlined as $500,000 a 12 months.
In keeping with a Harvard Crimson survey of Harvard seniors, the share of 2023 graduates going into finance and consulting exceeded 40 % for the second 12 months in a row. (The official Harvard Institutional Analysis survey yields decrease percentages for these fields than the Crimson survey, as a result of it consists of college students who aren’t coming into the work pressure.)
