Risking It All

I wonder if there's anything that unites us as a class of Harvard undergraduates, if there is some quality infused in us over the past four years by which we'll be able to recognize each other after we pass through Johnston Gate for the last time.

We certainly have our class rings, our dearly-bought scrap of Harvard parchment, and the promise of regular phone calls from the development office. We share experiences from Expos to the Last Chance Dance. And together we have the burden of living up to the high expectations of being a graduate of this historic school.

But it's occurred to me that we also share a deeper affinity, a habit of mind that's been instilled or reinforced during our time here: our deep phobia of risk, of taking chances.

I don't mean to say that Harvard students never fail. They do, and when they do, they often grow from the experience. And I don't mean to generalize—there are always outliers. But I do wish to highlight a powerful and often hidden aspect of our culture: Harvard students tend to be unhealthily obsessed with minimizing the chances they take with their future success, often to the detriment of their present happiness. Paralyzed by opportunity cost, it's impossible for them to seize an opportunity.



In her address at the Baccalaureate Service on Tuesday, President Faust wondered why so many members of the graduating class are uncomfortable knowing that nearly half of us have chosen to pursue careers in business, finance, or consulting. She proposed that this discomfort springs from a deeper anxiety that we must choose between the successful life, as conventionally defined, and the meaningful life.

But while exhorting us to choose meaning over money, Faust did not seem to have a ready answer as to why so many of us make the opposite choice. To me, it seems that that answer lies neither in our avarice, nor in our overriding relish for the intricacies of corporate finance.

It lies, I believe, in our obsession with minimizing risk.

Many among us follow something like a default path through Harvard. It begins by avoiding more interesting courses for those that promise a better curve. Then it progresses to joining the "right" extracurricular groups for a résumé line. Before fully realizing what has happened to him, this student has switched concentrations for an easier course load, and climbed aboard the well-oiled machine that lies at the end of the path: the Office of Career Services.

I've always found it curious that at an institution run by the most brilliant academics in the world, the best-run postgraduate counseling service, by far, is the business/consulting/finance juggernaut that has come to be known by seniors as e-recruiting.

For those who haven't experienced it firsthand, e-recruiting can be thought of as an assembly line that picks up the hapless, risk-minimizing Harvard student with no great interest in the business world sometime during junior year and deposits him in the lobby of a Fortune 500 firm with a suit and six-figure salary eighteen months later. What happens in between requires no great effort on the part of the risk-minimizers—besides a well-developed ability to convince themselves that they will be far better positioned to give back to the world from the comfort of a large house and fast car.

Even service-oriented organizations recognize the appeal of this model to the risk-minimizing student that populates Harvard. Teach for America (TFA) is a case in point. Well-marketed to an extreme, TFA overcomes risk-aversion by virtue of its close ties to the corporate world; do some good teaching poor kids for a few years, and your financial reward will still be waiting for you, the hint seems to be. It's perhaps no coincidence that TFA is one of the most successful service recruiters Harvard has ever seen. But then again, this may not be surprising—TFA was founded by a Princeton student, after all.

Of course, it's entirely possible that this phobia of risk that is branded upon the Harvard student's soul is not a result of our Ivy-pedigree education, but our decision to take part in it in the first place. Students who are admitted to Harvard haven't made many mistakes. While Byerly Hall does a fantastic job of putting together diverse classes, perhaps this risk-minimizing ethos is the exception. After all, with the luxury of a seven-percent admit rate, why would Harvard's gatekeepers bother taking risks with the future?

Maybe this state of affairs is inevitable. The fact is that we live in a society ruled by an invisible hand, not a philosopher-king. Those who take care not to make waves and to avoid situations in which failure is possible, can parlay their Harvard diplomas into a very sizable bank account.

There's nothing inherently wrong with wealth, or a love of finance. "Selling out to the Man" is tragic, as President Faust implied, only if it means betraying a higher passion or delaying a quest to find one. The real tragedy here is that students often sell out by default; it's the choice for those who see real choice as too risky.

In this way, Harvard can be thought of as the mother of all hedge funds—composed of students who are perpetually hedging their bets. One only wonders, when all is said and done, whether there'll be a corner of their soul that hasn't been hedged into oblivion.


Brian J. Rosenberg '08, a former Crimson editorial chair, is a biology concentrator in Lowell House.