Finance. A profitable, secure industry – alluring to many. But often the source of allure begins and ends with just that – security and profit. This year’s recruiting season for the financial industry has already begun. Many students are scheduling interviews and marking information sessions on their calendars. However, after further reflection on this annual tradition, we wonder – do Middlebury students apply to be analysts and investment bankers because they actually want those jobs, or because they are afraid to do something else?
One thing is for sure – students are taking the jobs. According to the CCI, 24 percent of employed students in the class of 2015 went into financial services – nearly one-fourth of the graduates. That is a ten point jump from the next-highest industry, education. Big financial institutions are actively seeking out Middlebury students, and we seem to be jumping at the chance. The result is a campus-to-finance pipeline that we believe has become too normalized in this community.
Many students pursue careers in finance with sincere motivations. We recognize that some students have a genuine passion for the work itself. We understand that others are motivated by financial security and the flexibility it affords later in life. Many students spend a few compulsory years on Wall Street before pivoting toward their dream job. For those whose parents cannot support them, who are graduating with debt from student loans or who may shoulder the responsiblity of providing for others, the appeal of a lucrative career is entirely understandable. The economic incentive offered by the financial industry is significant, and we understand and respect the variety of reasons that students may want (or need) to seek it.
But there is an alarming trend that we as an editorial board have observed: many students gravitate toward finance by default. Some attend information sessions because finance “looks good” – the reputation is prestigious and the salary is hard to turn down. Other students may seek refuge in the financial industry because it offers structure and protection, even if the field has little (or nothing) to do with what they care about.
It is true that careers in finance are highly marketable and that students of elite colleges are often well positioned to seek them. Students may fear that the value of their liberal arts education is too nebulous for employers to appreciate. The prospect of entering the “real world” can be frightening, and the reassuring sense of structure provided by a collegiate system is mirrored in the realm of finance. But anxiety is not a healthy reason to pursue a particular career. We as an editorial board worry that such anxiety has become a pervasive decision-making factor.
This is not a phenomenon unique to Middlebury; it is a consistent pattern across prestigious colleges. As New Republic contributor and former Yale professor William Deresiewicz writes, “The irony is that elite students are told they can be whatever they want, but most of them end up choosing to be one of a few very similar things.” In his piece entitled, “How Wall Street takes advantage of the Ivy League’s failures,” Vox Media founder Ezra Klein writes, “What Wall Street figured out is that colleges are producing a large number of very smart, completely confused graduates. Kids who have ample mental horsepower, incredible work ethics and no idea what to do next. So the finance industry takes advantage that confusion, attracting students who never intended to work in finance, but don’t have any better ideas about where to go.”
This tendency to default into finance stems from our conventionally academic, high-achieving roots. As Deresiewicz writes, “So extreme are the admission standards now that kids who manage to get into elite colleges have, by definition, never experienced anything but success. The prospect of not being successful terrifies them, disorients them.” Middlebury students have been conditioned both to achieve and to seek environments that protect achievers. It would be difficult to argue against the degree of security that the financial industry is able to offer. But students sometimes forgo their true passions in the name of that security.
We encourage students with a more general interest in the field to reflect thoughtfully on why. Middlebury students are exactly the kind of young people who should embrace a variety of post-graduate ambitions. Our liberal arts education has given us the ability to think critically and imaginatively about the world around us. We are taught to follow our passions, view the status quo with a healthy dose of skepticism and embrace uncertainty. Liberal arts students – the ones whose education is characterized by critical thinking - ought not to mindlessly gravitate toward investment banking.
We are calling on the school to meet students halfway. The Center for Careers and Internships (CCI) should expand their offerings to include more opportunities that deviate from the finance track. Though the CCI is not to blame for the prevalence of financial recruitment at Middlebury, they could certainly do more to increase the prevalence of other sectors. Take, for example, MiddNet – the site to which the CCI has referred many job-seeking students. While there is a bounty of contacts listed under finance and consulting, there are few – or, in some cases, no – contacts in fields like government, journalism and the arts. Available opportunities on MOJO paint a similar picture. Our editorial board was overwhelmed by stories of disappointed students searching for such jobs and finding an absence of results.
The editorial board sees a growing need for Middlebury graduates to reach out and recruit current students for fields other than finance. While we greatly appreciate the efforts of alumni currently on MiddNet, we feel that if employees from firms, newspapers, non-profits – groups other than, say, Goldman Sachs, which already has a finite recruitment process – raised their voices, their call would be met with a slew of job applications.
We urge students to be in charge of their own futures. Whether you end up an analyst, an AmeriCorps volunteer or somewhere in between, we encourage you to make your choice with consideration and care. We, as Middlebury students, are equipped to seek and value a variety of career paths, including – and especially – the less obvious and linear choices. If you are passionate about a career in finance, by all means pursue it. And if you are less excited about a future in banking, reach out for help (from a friend, an alum, a professor or the internet) in navigating the realm of alternative possibilities. Don’t drift toward the obvious possibility blindly.
