Money (That's What We Want)

Arecent ad in the Crimson read: "An open invitation for open minds. What will be your journey? To see the world from a string of satellites...to help build a rover to drive across the Martian landscape...to help Nike just do it. Here's your chance to step beyond the boundaries. Goldman Sachs. MINDS WIDE OPEN."

The ridiculous rhetoric of the full-page ad didn't surprise us--over the course of the fall we have seen an endless number of ads and posters asking us if were ready to change the rules of the game, to earn the future, or to participate in a paradigm shift. But this ad stood out in the morass of meaningless slogans and reminded us that their emptiness is in no way innocuous.

From the text of the ad we gleaned that not only would helping a company being boycotted worldwide for unfair labor practices be a good thing, but somehow Goldman Sachs and open-mindedness are related. The connection between the massive investment banking and securities firm and minds--wide open--remains elusive, and we've come to realize that the mystery of this ad and ones like it is a small portion of the greater mystery of recruiting and the investment banking or consulting jobs to which they lead.

Jobs with titles like management consulting, asset manager and project analyst are mysterious enough in and of themselves. But the greater and more disturbing mystery is that so many seniors intensely vie for these positions. As much as we'd like to know how Goldman Sachs is going to give us an opportunity to step beyond the boundaries, we're far more desperate to find out why Harvard students heralded for their intelligence, diversity, creativity and talent are flocking toward firms where regardless of what their ads say, or what exactly they do, the paramount goal is to make money and embrace the rules of the game.

The first answer that comes to mind is because the work one does as a cryptically titled, well-paid, recruited person is fascinating and satisfying. This must be true of some of the jobs one can obtain through the recruiting process. But the college experience of many recruiting hopefuls does not coincide as neatly with the activities of a management consultant or investment banker. It is difficult to imagine that students from almost every concentration, who filled their undergraduate days with sports, public service, campus publications and musical groups, have in fact been quelling a deep-seated interest in finance and corporate management. We have no doubt that some people are fascinated by these subjects, but interest does not seem to be an adequate explanation for the broad-based appeal of consulting and investment banking.

Perhaps we should face the possibility that many Harvard students, like the firms recruiting them, hold making money as the paramount goal. Again we realize that this description probably fits a portion of the senior class (and that high paying jobs may be especially attractive to those with the burden of large student loans), but we are unwilling to discard our naivete wholesale and ascribe greed and selfishness to the same students who have filled the ranks of PBHA service programs. We cannot be ignorant of their undeniable good fortune. One must wonder how it is that Harvard students, who have been the beneficiaries of all that society has to offer, could feel a desire only to further our position of enormous privilege rather than some sense of reciprocal responsibility to use these advantages to better the lives of those less fortunate.

A final possibility for the lemming-like race toward Wall Street is that two years in a high paying job in New York City is an attractive path with little resistance. This is another unappealing answer; further, it is incongruous with the leadership ability, creativity and capacity for original thought that we like to think characterize Harvard students.

With the resume drop deadline now past, we are enjoying the (albeit temporary) end in the barrage of misleading advertisements and solicitous letters but remain baffled and haunted by the fear that we have been naive in thinking Harvard students are anything more than privileged, selfish kids who know how to work long hours and play by the rules. We hope that over winter break the same seniors who have brought dynamism and diverse passions to the University for nearly four years get a chance to think (with minds, wide open) about the fact that they can contribute more to society than high income taxes and that they once imagined futures more vibrant than realizing corporate mission statements.

Abigail R. Branch '98 lives in Quincy House and is concentrating in Social Studies. Andrea Johnson '98-'99 lives in Quincy House and is concentrating in Environmental Science and Public Policy.