Lisa Zhu | Time to pay it forward

The conventional formula for a senior goodbye piece (whether it takes the form of a DP column or a commencement speech) goes something like this:

1.) Nostalgically list several fond, quintessentially-Penn memories-"I remember getting wasted at Smokes/being pelted at Hey Day/pissing on Ben Franklin's statue ."

2.) Reminisce at length about lessons learned; the less academic, the better-"College taught me never to try picking up a girl by vomiting on her while trying to give her a lap dance."

3.) Give youngsters a few nuggets of invaluable wisdom (see part 2)-"OMG! Columbus was totes right-the world is round, you won't fall off the edge if you go past 41st Street!"

Obviously, this is different. I spent two years of Zhu-ology expounding on education reform and urban economic development instead of the latest changes to Facebook's layout, in the hopes that a few readers may learn more about the city where we live. Naturally, my final farewell would be similarly "serious."

As I prepare to graduate, it strikes me that because of the financial crisis, we have one more reason to dread entering the "real world." The recession has meant higher unemployment rates everywhere, but it's also translated into a reputational smear against recent graduates from Penn and our peer institutions - made especially true since the majority of employed seniors entered the financial-services industry during the heyday of investment banking. With conservative and liberal pundits alike ranting about how Ivy League alumni turned Wall Street into corporate thievery institutions that robbed Main Street, it's easy to feel castigated by society.

As part of the new generation of students who are preparing to face this turmoil, we can do one of two things. One option is to curl up in a fetal position with a bottle of whiskey and a box of tissues, bemoaning how terrible it is for us poor Ivy League grads to be both unemployed and detested - clearly eliciting a great deal of sympathy from the rest of the population. The alternative is for us to clean up after the excesses of the previous generation of young alumni, to rebuild the reputation of Penn grads from Wall Street-bound corporate drones into bright, innovative minds that will shape a better future for the world.

I agree, it's unfair to be blamed for the workplace decisions of former students, but instead of complaining about our misfortune, we need to make the best of a bad situation - for ourselves, and for others. I'll admit that when the subprime mortgage crisis first hit in the summer of 2007, I was just as worried as every other Wharton student. I was in Uganda at the time, working with a village near Lake Victoria to start an ecotourism business. But in the weeks when banking giants announced round after round of crippling losses, I stopped caring about job availability come OCR spring, and became immersed in helping the women in the village form a troupe to offer the tourists traditional African dance lessons. On the first day of operation, several backpackers came, and afterwards, Barbara, the leader of the group, showed me their earnings for the day - 500 Ugandan shillings, or about 25 cents.

I was mortified - 25 cents was not my idea of success. But Barbara disagreed. "My husband fishes and he gives me some money to buy food for our children. The other women are all like me. These 500 shillings - this is the first money we've ever made on our own."

That was my epiphany, my moment where I realized that a college degree is not just a ticket to a higher-paying job, but a social privilege that demands us to pay the benefits forward. So pre-meds, join Doctors Without Borders. Engineers, use your skills to design new forms of energy technology. Whartonites, start your own socially based venture. I'll be thinking of you all from my classroom in the Bronx.

Lisa Zhu is a College and Wharton senior from Cherry Hill, NJ. Zhu-ology appeared on Thursdays. Her email address is zhu@dailypennsylvanian.com. Lisa will be working for Teach For America in the Bronx this fall.

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