The realization that life is getting serious seems to have beaten us back to campus this fall. It hits especially hard for those of us in that liminal space that sits past the bliss of first year and the security of a post-grad job. We’ve barely settled into our schedules, and already the clock is ticking on our future. We’re exhausted, overworked, and our brains are turning into a mush of AI, screen time, and info sessions. Still, LinkedIn is exploding with announcements of job offers and internships. So, apparently some of us aren’t quite as troubled.
Penn’s push toward careers has morphed from a humorous conversation point into something much more sinister. As if everyone in the “this is stupid we’ll figure out jobs later” club has secretly taken a bid at Goldman. Of course, to see your peers accomplish their dreams and secure their place in the world is a beautiful thing. But it also makes our futures much less of a blurry hypothetical and instead a tangible and solid wall — one we must all begin our climb up.
It’s suddenly standard to have our career and life after college secured. This is good. This is tradition. Everything is falling into place exactly how everyone knew it would. We will occupy top spots at top firms and live the rest of our lives summering and skiing and sending our kids to feeder schools where they’ll meet each other. And in the most shocking turn of events, they’ll go to Penn too. The cycle will repeat itself. (With nuance of course — your kids might go to Columbia).
This sounds great. This is the return of our financial investment in Penn. This is job security and the benefits of being admitted into the top ranks of society. The problem isn’t success, and it’s not ambition. The problem is that we will be powerful, secure, and comfortable, and that’s it. We will never be radical.
Throughout my time as a Penn student, I’ve had the opportunity to speak to numerous wildly successful people. Changemakers, entrepreneurs, nonprofit starters: people at the top of their respective fields. My classmates and myself have watched eagerly, waiting for the moment a guest speaker might finally give us the answer to success. Like they might just forget that it’s a secret and it will just come spilling out. Yet, each time we’re disappointed. Because they all have no concrete answer. It’s no one school, no one pill, no one path. So we chalk it up to destiny and finish that recruiting application we put down momentarily.
Harvard student Julia Alvarenga writes about how going to an elite university gives its students boundless opportunities — but it robs them of something, too. She compares schools like Penn and Harvard to a machine: “The machine doesn’t break you. It just builds a smaller room around you until you forget there were other rooms.” Elite universities, meant to make the possibilities seem endless, build a room so small its students think their only options are consulting and investment banking.
What does the author of this post decide? She doesn’t end by announcing that she’s going to forget the workforce all together and instead make a living off her humble farm. That would be impractical, especially for those of us who don’t have the security of a colossal pile of funds to soften our landing. What she does decide, though, is that she’s going somewhere, and it’s not BlackRock. She has direction (not destination), and more importantly, she is unafraid to fail.
As Penn students, I feel like all we do is want. We want prestige and money and the validation of knowing we’re on the right track. But I doubt we all arrived here dreaming for our careers to be spent in banking. Penn just made the room so small we decided it was our only option. And uncertainty is scary. Why wait for inspiration to strike when we need a salary and a way to live. We have no incentive to be revolutionary.
This isn’t to say there is something wrong with being boring. Some of the most fulfilled people I’ve ever met work simple jobs and have simple lives. But, at least some of us need to be something more, right? I know all of us don't want to work in investment banking. It’s just not possible. Look at our applications — we’re supposed to be environmental scientists, artists, astronauts, and poets. If we keep going this way, those at large state schools will quickly become all of the revolutionaries in the world.
There’s around 300 articles I could point you to that all say the same thing: “don’t go into banking! Do something else!” While I agree, the point really should be that you can go into banking if you want. But if there is even the smallest sliver of passion somewhere else, know that the room is bigger. Know that every changemaker I know was brave enough to take the time to experience uncertainty until something authentic came out.
The people we call changemakers and revolutionaries did not arrive there by default. They did not optimize at 20. They did not choose the safest room and camp out there. At some point, they interrogated what they wanted and were willing to embarrass themselves to get it. If none of us pause long enough to do it we will never become those people. We’ll be impressive, but never enough to make any substantial change.
So, just pause.
PIPER SLINKA-PETKA is a College junior studying health and societies from West Virginia. Her email address is pipersp@sas.upenn.edu.
