COLUMN: You think we're in trouble?

From Siona Listokin', "Think Different," Fall '99 From Siona Listokin', "Think Different," Fall '99They call it pre-business. I say it is precocious focus. They claim it is the result of insatiable money hunger. I can't think of anything better to do. Let's start with the pre-laws. Pre-law students major in something easy and interesting. They insist they are the American justice system's Second Coming because they were the stars of their high school debate teams. So they bask in the gentle college years, stroking their magnificent logic skills and then hide in the brief three-year intellectual cushion that law school provides. I hope they enjoy it. Because at around the same time they graduate with a J.D. and move to New York, my constitution-loving friends will discover the 100-hour workweek. In five years, the pre-laws will realize that making partner, or even making a living, is about more than contemplation and heavy leather-bound books. And dreams of being called the 22nd century's John Marshall will be overshadowed by the hope that Friday comes quickly. Ah. What release. You cannot imagine the strain constant derision puts on a finance major. Allow me to purge any remaining grudge by continuing my soliloquy. Pre-meds are much harder to ridicule. Pre-meds insist that they need to work with People and help their Fellow Man. For the most part, I believe them. What undermines their pretensions to altruism is their ever-present hatred for other pre-meds. And the odd conviction that only graduates of Harvard Medical School become good doctors. Let's not forget the self-satisfied pleasure pre-meds take in the notion that since the creation of HMOs, physicians can no longer eke out a living. I especially love when pre-meds attempt to explain to plebs like me how much they love biology: "The human body is just so? amazing. The way everything works together is just? incredible." Oh. I think they've all lost their minds. They get into the track, wake up one day in the middle of Organic Chemistry, and that's it. I commend all the Ph.D. hopefuls. These guys just never want to leave school. But we must examine their career choice as well. Ph.D.s are in the enviable position of being intellectually superior and, of course, professors get summers off. But I have known too many people who received Ph.D.s and lived to regret it. You may love philosophy, but do you really want it to become your life? Pretty soon, all that expertise just leads to t4he second-most hated career on this campus -- consulting. (The first? Let's not be coy -- no one is neutral on the subject of investment bankers.) Your average Ph.D. doesn't want to work. They want to sit in an office. But before they know what hit them, they're writing fiscal impact analyses entitled "The Costs of Historic Preservation" and wondering where the good old days of freshman Art History went. Oh, and in the real world, there is no such thing as "abstract importance" and the accompanying "nothing lower than a B" rule. But enough. The Penn course register is far too long for a thorough appraisal, and generalizing is in such poor taste. I harbor almost no bitterness toward the people described in this column. Just so long as everyone understand that they are not entirely beyond ridicule. Except the Communications majors. Communications and the ensuing profession, Communicating, is the only selfless course of study out there. I have absolutely nothing to say about it.