Serving My Country—and Me

Kennedy School professor Ashton B. Carter won’t have a hard time making friends in Washington. Carter, who recently announced his appointment as the new director of weapons procurement at the Pentagon, will join a flock of Harvard affiliates who have already migrated to the capital. The role call boasts some of our biggest names—from Elena Kagan to Cass R. Sunstein ’75—and the total count comes to at least 10 Harvard professors along with numerous alumni.

These men and women may seem like inspiration for a Harvard graduate to pass over Wall Street or med school for a cozy cubicle at the Pentagon. But a closer look at the career paths of these appointees points motivated students in a different direction. Many of Obama’s Harvard picks moved into their elite roles laterally, from top positions in related fields, rather than through the government apparatus itself.

This is discouraging for those of us interested in pursuing government jobs. We’re conscientious citizens, but we also want to be rewarded for a job well done. If Washington wants to encourage bright students to spend their careers in government, therefore, rather than marketing the public sector to us more aggressively, it should lay out a clearer path to success from within the bureaucracy.

As it stands, many government head honchos are there by way of other fields, such as academia, business, or law. Sunstein, the new head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, for instance, spent 90 percent of his professional career at the University of Chicago and Harvard Law Schools. The new associate attorney general, law school grad Thomas J. Perelli, started out in top D.C. law firm Jenner & Block.

Such external appointments are daily business in the public sector. They are not inherently bad—indeed, few would doubt that Sunstein, the most frequently cited legal scholar in America, is not qualified for his post. However, these indirect career paths do discourage bright, ambitious students from signing on for a career in public service.

Such students do not want to work in a field where in-house opportunities for career advancement are so uncertain. No matter how passionately we feel about public service, dismal-looking advancement opportunities packaged with lower salaries and a lack of immediate prestige make this field a difficult choice. No number of info sessions by OCS or heartfelt appeals from the commencement dais will change this.

Rather, if public service is to become a more attractive option, the government must ensure that career advancement is a real possibility. Here, some inspiration may be taken from the elite military academies. The prestige and concrete career boost conferred on West Point graduates—they start out as second lieutenants after graduation, rather than privates—motivates students and assures them of being properly valued in the military.

A similar career boost for bright students would be helpful in government. The public sector already has plenty of institutions that do the job of a West Point in the form of high-ranking government and public-service schools. The government would be well-served by starting a “Public Service Fellows” program in which students who graduate magna cum laude are put on an official career fast track. Of course, this does not mean that such graduates should be blindly promoted regardless of competence. But simply giving a promise of open doors and professional attention ahead of time—in return for merit-worthy work—would make public service a much more attractive career option.

Admittedly, such a program should not have to exist. Quality workers should naturally rise to the top in any good organization. But that’s a magnificently long-term problem, and in the meantime the government still needs an influx of talented students in its ranks. When career bureaucrats dominate the cabinet roundtable, then advancement shortcuts will be obsolete. Until then, talented students will need to see a less murky path to success if they are to join the public sector.


Anita J Joseph ’12, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Wigglesworth Hall.