Hello, I Must Be Going

When I was a freshman, nothing bothered me more than seniors who would moan and groan about the difficulties they faced deciding what to do after graduation. (Actually, one thing was more irksome: seniors who started tedious and patronizing anecdotes with the phrase, “When I was a freshman.”) How anyone could complain about a future that included cable television and never again having to eat off dining hall trays totally baffled me. Now, of course, the future seems rather more daunting.

I still have a healthy skepticism for people who romanticize the Harvard undergraduate experience, and worry aloud about how they will ever survive without its red-brick classrooms and tweedy professors. (The answer: most of them won’t, and you’ll still see them here in six years’ time, working on Ph.D.s, or enrolling at the Divinity School.) The notion that Harvard is an oasis of perfection in the midst of a barren and inhospitable desert has always seemed to me, and continues to seem, somewhat naïve and cowardly. In fact, I’m certainly ready to leave Harvard behind. No disrespect to my roommate, but from now on if I live with someone, I had better be dating her. No, the question is not whether I’m moving on from Cambridge, but whither.

In the past, the question of what beckoned after college seemed pleasantly abstract, and prying, if well-meaning, family friends could always be fobbed off with the response, “Well, I’m hoping to catch up on four years’ worth of sleep and then I’ll go from there.” Towards the end of this summer, though, that answer started to sound trite, and instead of appearing agreeably flexible, I began to look disagreeably lazy. So now, like at least a quarter of the students at Harvard, I have to start thinking seriously about what my next step might be.

The answer for many students seems simple: law school. Few thoughts are more enticing than procrastinating by taking another three years of classes at an elite academic institution and postponing decision time until your mid-20s. Statistics show that going to law school is becoming an increasingly appealing option. The Crimson reported on Sept. 18 that a record 7,300 students had applied to Harvard Law School last year. These statistics fit in with a national trend that saw applications across the country increase by 17.9 percent, according to the Law School Admission Council, which oversees the LSAT exam. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the tough current economic climate, many see spending a couple more years in a sheltered academic environment as a safe, smart choice right now. When your choice is between taking the bar exam and becoming a barista at Starbucks, it is not hard to see why many students would plump for the former.

Law school, however, is not necessarily the get-of-out-jail-free card it appears to be at first glance. First, three more years of education is many things; free is not one of them. For people who are not drawn to the law, law school can seem like nothing more than an extraordinarily expensive three-year vacation. Except, of course, it lacks the usual pleasures of vacations, like rest and relaxation. Also, more school means plenty more homework, libraries and exams, but no more freedom. Many students find themselves ready to leave academia behind after four years as an undergraduate: the real question is how.

Some socially conscious students who seek to differentiate between doing well and doing good head off to join the Peace Corps or to do Teach For America. Other students who understand the difference between doing well and doing badly will go through recruiting en route to banking or consulting. The recruiting season will really take off in a couple of months, but companies are already flexing their corporate muscle with posters in House entryways and psuedo-informal get-togethers at the Charles Hotel, forcing all seniors, regardless of their intentions, to confront the issue of next year before this one has even properly begun. In fact, that may not be an entirely terrible thing: nothing is harder, for me at least, than stepping back to see the big picture when in the midst of hectic day-to-day life at Harvard. It is often hard enough to stay afloat by treading water during midterms and papers; the prospect of swimming to the distant shore of job security during that period is as unappealing as it is unlikely.

That does not mean to say, however, that any immediate solution comes to mind. (A quick search of askjeeves.com revealed that I could not, in fact, take a month of training and fly around the globe in commercial jets for a couple of years, as I had previously hoped.) Obviously, there is nothing wrong with being undecided. I was never one of those students who visualized Harvard as a brief stop between their National Merit Scholarships and Goldman Sachs —and I am very glad of that. Of course, in many ways I envy those people’s certainty and sense of purpose. Still, while some students will continue to bomb along the interstates on the life map they drew up long ago, the rest of us will meander along smaller roads, hoping to discover our destinations as we travel. With any luck, we’ll find somewhere worth stopping soon enough. After all, sleeping in my little Chrysler Lebaron isn’t all that desirable.

Anthony S.A. Freinberg ’04 is a history concentrator in Lowell House. His column appears on alternate Wednesdays.