3 ms·
The takeaway line: "The typical Harvard undergraduate is someone who … is driven more by fear of not being a success than by a concrete desire to do anything in
by karzeem 16y ago
The takeaway line: "The typical Harvard undergraduate is someone who … is driven more by fear of not being a success than by a concrete desire to do anything in particular."
To the extent that this is true, it applies equally well to most people who excel in school, and I think there's a point there that the author leaves untouched.
And that is that it's emotionally very hard to watch your friends — especially people who appear less intelligent, diligent, or otherwise "worthy" (that's subjective, obviously) — make significantly more money than you. In the long term, that can strain friendships, and I think it's a major explanatory factor in why smart kids go "waste" their talent in finance and consulting.
In other words, appearing to be less successful than one's peers is something that few overachievers are emotionally capable of handling.
- megablast 16y agoI think you miss the point that they make it very easy to go with Wall Street, they tell you exactly what to do, coach you in interviews, and constantly call you to convince you to come to them. They hound people, make them feel special, wanted and even needed. Difficult to compare that to all the companies I have interviewed at, even when they did want me to work there. So you have the big bad world of the unknown, or this nice bunch of people, who also went to your school, and really want you to come over to New York and hang out with them.
- npp 16y agoI recall Microsoft, Google, and other large engineering companies making very similar efforts (and the tech companies certainly push lifestyle factors much more directly). It's the same in lots of areas, not just finance and consulting. The main difference seems to be that these finance and consulting companies recruit across a huge variety of departments, so are relevant to many more students.
- lmkg 16y agoMore than just preparing people for getting hired, these companies also seem to make their hiring pipeline resemble the admissions pipeline for the Ivy Leagues themselves. Despite the fact that it's a hard grueling selection process, that can still make it the path of least resistance for people who went through that process once already. It's not only familiar, it feeds your expectations of what the "next step" is supposed to look like.