Crisis Careers

As I make my way through senior fall, the biggest thing on my mind — besides the end of the world — is finding a good career.

I’ve been watching environmental devastation unfold for months and years, in slow motion and then suddenly at high speed. I fear for everyone’s future when I see the crisis consuming our planet. But I still need to think about what I’ll do after I graduate, and how Harvard can help me get there.

That’s one of Harvard’s central promises: a world-class education, and afterward, the propensity for extraordinary career success. The College boasts that it cultivates our minds and talents, turning us into future “citizen-leaders.”

When it comes to climate, most Harvard students want to be involved. A 2021 survey showed that a full 90 percent of College students wanted to engage with alumni on topics related to the climate. That shows that we recognize the need to act, and that we want the support of the Harvard community to do so.

So there is plenty of opportunity for Harvard to promote sustainable careers based in climate justice among its student body. But too often, Harvard lets the causers of the climate crisis recruit us into working for them instead.

In 2022, Harvard allowed ExxonMobil to advertise a recruiting event at MIT to its students — which was met with much-needed resistance from both Harvard and MIT students at the event. ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and Shell Oil Company are all listed as employers on Mignone Center for Career Success’s online database Crimson Careers, where they may advertise jobs, events, and contact information to Harvard students.

Shell even self-describes on its Crimson Careers web page as pursuing energy solutions that are “economically, environmentally and socially responsible” — so Harvard is complicit in its students receiving that description of Shell.

In contrast to its Crimson Careers description, Shell is actually one of several fossil fuel companies that seems to have fallen short of its pledge to explore alternative energy this year. It also raked in its highest-ever annual profit in 2022, while floods overwhelmed Pakistan and wildfires choked California. Still, Harvard has apparently done nothing to remove Shell’s misleading description.

Beyond the immediate sphere of oil and gas companies, Harvard also sends its students into careers that bolster the fossil fuel industry. Among Harvard’s “premier employment partners” who “consistently hire Harvard students” is Liberty Mutual: a top insurer of fossil fuel companies with a major role in aiding the continued buildout of fossil fuel infrastructure, according to environmental campaigner Elana Sulakshana. And Harvard Law School produces the second largest aggregate number of fossil fuel lawyers out of the top 20 law schools in the country, according to a report by Law Students for Climate Accountability.

The fossil fuel industry is toxic. When I say that, I’m not saying anything Harvard doesn’t already know: Harvard pledged to divest its endowment from fossil fuels all the way back in 2021, saying further investment was imprudent given Harvard’s teaching and research mission. Harvard has, slowly but surely, been leaving the fossil fuel industry behind as it works to combat climate change.

And yet, fossil fuel companies are still allowed to recruit us. If Harvard has acknowledged this industry is imprudent to invest its endowment in, why would it invest its students in fossil fuel jobs? Why would Harvard allow any of the talent it has cultivated to be funneled into an industry focused on making the world worse?

Furthermore, by allowing such recruitment, Harvard lets fossil fuel companies deceive and take advantage of its students, setting them up for failure. Any student who takes a job with a fossil fuel company or fossil fuel partner is working against their own long-term best interest: They’re taking a job in an industry with no future and contributing to harm against the world that they’re going to inherit.

It’s time to change Harvard’s recruitment relationships with these damaging corporations. Harvard’s Center for Career Success has employer recruiting policies which mandate particular behavior from companies that want to recruit at Harvard. If those policies incorporated social or ecological impact into its criteria — similar to a recommendation previously suggested in a column in The Crimson — then fossil fuel companies would likely be among the first to go.

Already, six universities in the United Kingdom have committed to banning oil, gas, and mining sectors from recruiting their students. Harvard could become the first university in the United States to take this step. It could use this moment, following the momentum of divestment, to distance itself from imprudent relationships.

As a Harvard student, I see the environmental degradation in the world around me, but I still need to decide what to do with my future. We all need to decide what we’ll dedicate our careers to, in the face of a world on fire. Harvard should be helping us along that journey and encouraging us to make a positive impact — not nudging us toward careers in fossil fuels.

Phoebe G. Barr ’24 is a History and Literature concentrator in Lowell House and an organizer with Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard. Her column, “Harvard’s Role Amid Climate Chaos,” appears bi-weekly on Thursdays.