Recession promotes humanitarian careers

By Rachel Marcus     4/16/09 7:00pm

In the past few years, graduating college seniors have flocked toward jobs in investment banking or consulting, thanks to their relatively high starting salaries and the prestige they add to a résumé. This trend is particularly true at some of the most competitive and elite schools in the nation; The New York Times has reported that 40 percent of recent Harvard undergraduates go on to careers in finance.At Rice, the Career Services survey of recent alumni indicates that a large number of bachelor's degree recipients who do not go on to graduate or professional schools choose banking or consulting for their first jobs out of college. However, with the current state of the economy, finance has lost much of its pull: Jobs are scarcer and less secure, and the industry no longer holds the prestige it once did. With these sudden changes in the job market, many current college seniors are left without the traditional career paths that their predecessors took in previous years. Now, the question is, in what direction will the new generation of college students choose to go?

In the 1950s and 1960s, science and technology-related industries were the fields of choice for many of America's top students. Jobs in government and public service were more popular, as Cold War-era conflicts motivated many individuals to serve their country. During that time, as Paul Krugman noted in The New York Times, banking was considered "boring;" its glamorous and lucrative reputation has only been acquired in the past few decades.

Much has been made of the notion that "the best and the brightest" young people have gone on to careers in finance rather than using their talents toward developing cures for cancer, for instance, or helping to solve the conflict in the Middle East. Many of those people lamenting the rise of the financial industry see the popularity of investment banking and consulting as indicative of a greedy streak running through American culture. However, I do not believe it is prudent to blame young college students for preferring to go into these fields. It is only natural to want to maximize one's chances for success, both in terms of status and financial rewards.

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At the present moment, soon-to-be and recent college graduates are facing the challenge of having to make decisions about their future careers without a clear blueprint for success. Given that in this economy, financial success is not a safe bet in any industry, many people are turning to jobs in government and public service-related positions, such as teaching. The competitiveness of programs like Teach for America certainly gives credibility to the notion that a new generational shift is taking place. Indeed, the Teach for America program has given teaching jobs a certain amount of prestige. Additionally, some of the new education policymakers, such as Michelle Rhee of the Washington, D.C. school district, have made raising teacher salaries a central issue; the higher pay for teaching jobs may lure more high-achieving students into the field.

Not long ago I spoke to friend of mine, a recently laid-off banker who is now going back to school to get a master's degree in public health. "Working in a bank just wasn't really satisfying to me," she said. "I started off wanting to go to medical school, but I went into banking for the money. Now that I don't have my banking job anymore, I have the chance to do something that really interests me, in a field where I can make a real difference."

Perhaps this kind of attitude is the greatest upside to the recent financial crisis. Now that people are no longer tempted by the promise of vast amounts of wealth in finance, they have the freedom to pursue careers that may be more directly beneficial to society. In this sense, I expect that we will be entering a new era in which the potential to make a difference in society will have greater value to young people making career choices, and we should expect to see some of our "best and brightest" once again pursuing goals toward effecting social change.

Rachel Marcus is a Jones College senior.

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