Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a rise in the number of visits from prospective students. I always wonder what first impressions these visitors get when they see Penn for the first time.
On some days, they might leave with an impression of Penn as a civically minded and politically engaged campus. Walking down Locust walk, these visitors might be approached by groups representing causes such as a fundraising event for disaster relief, a get-out-the vote campaign or a movie screening about issues in the developing world. On other days (especially those in the first few weeks of fall and spring semester), prospective students might see a swarm of students walking nervously around campus dressed in suits and carrying leather books. This scene represents another side of Penn: the pre-professional one.
In some ways, these two sides of Penn — the socially minded and the pre-professional — seem to coexist on one campus quite well. Many College students participate in business-focused clubs, and contrary to what might be popular belief, many Wharton students volunteer their time in West Philadelphia and participate in other socially minded activities. It is not rare at all for students of any school to cultivate both social-impact and pre-professional interests during their time at Penn.
Yet when it comes to combining these two parts of Penn they seem to be at odds, especially with regards to career choices. One common perception is that they are two mutually exclusive choices after graduation.
For example, it seems that a common perception is that one can either do good but live a very modest life, or “sell out” and work at an investment bank or a consulting company. Another belief is that the business and social impact are completely incompatible altogether; after the meltdown of Wall Street, it is not hard to understand why many Penn students and the general public see the two as conflicting.
But these perceptions may be misguided, especially in light of new developments in both the social-impact space and the business world. For example, the social sector has seen a rise in social enterprises, which are businesses that focus on both financial and social missions. These organizations range from the Grameen Bank, the microfinance organization that was co-awarded the Nobel Prize in 2006, to Innova Materials, a materials technology company committed to building sustainably (and founded by Penn alumni).
Additionally, traditional corporations are also becoming more cognizant of their social impact, and are creating departments dedicated to corporate social responsibility, community outreach and environmental sustainability.
From a post-graduate perspective, these changes give Penn students more opportunities to pursue careers that no longer require a trade-off between “doing well” and “doing good.” For students who are still more inclined to the social sector, revenue-generating social enterprises can pay higher salaries, thus reducing the fear that one must starve to work for a social cause. For students who still want to enter the private sector, companies’ increased emphasis on social-impact activities make corporate careers with a social-impact focus increasingly viable.
Here at Penn, there are also growing ways to explore the blurring line between the social-impact and for-profit worlds. Over the past few years, students have established new clubs focusing on areas ranging from microfinance, a way of extending financial services to the poor (Penn Microfinance) to consulting for local and international non-profits (Social Impact Consulting and Penn International Business Volunteers) to social entrepreneurship (Penn Social Entrepreneurship Mentoring). Penn alumni have also been involved in establishing non-profit organizations focused on rural education (Givology).
These groups, which are all members of the Social Impact Task Force, are combining their efforts to present the first annual Social Impact Week. The goal of the week is to celebrate social- impact activities at Penn and to highlight other, innovative ways to engage in social impact. The week kicks off with the Coleman Social Impact Lecture Series tonight, and all events can be found in the Events@Penn section of The Daily Pennsylvanian.
As social-impact initiatives continue to grow at Penn and beyond, students will be able to blend their interests in a more fulfilling and more effective way.
James Liu is a Wharton senior and co-founder of the Social Impact Task Force. His e-mail address is jamesliu@wharton.upenn.edu.
