September 15, 1998
E-mail a Response
The Price Isn't Right
Opinion
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
Dozing off in the Career Center, I have a hazy memory of our first-grade class, going down the line announcing to a packed auditorium what we wanted to be someday.
"I WANT TO BE A FIRE ENGINE!" screamed my friend, who would not find his calling even here at Cornell - "a place where any person can find instruction in any study." Further down the line ... a doctor. President of the United States. The parents held hands and beamed at their precocious children, thinking of all of the infinite paths available to them.
We were those kids once, concerned only with carefree kid things. But years went by, each of us bumbling through life like a chip bouncing down the Plinko board. And suddenly we find ourselves poised to freefall into a single bin that will come to define our very identity. When we first put our resumes on the Web, we begin a process infinitely more nerve-racking than college applications ever were.
It is when we're in this fragile, insecure state that the Man locates us. He sees us walking uncertainly through the Career Fair, and approaches, representing a multi-national investment firm in the form of a well-dressed person with a friendly smile. He charismatically tells us about the success that you and he could find in a partnership. (Luke, join the dark side. Together we will conquer the universe.)
He speaks of the benefits that he can offer you if you join his team. (Just drink this magic potion, and all the money and power you could want will be yours). The contract is presented. (Our hero places the vile vial to his lips). With a sweep of the hand you sign. (The hero pours the promising nectar down his throat). Suddenly the Man erupts into victorious laughter, for he knows that the hero's soul, and in fact all of his faculties, are now his to keep.
This semester we'll see a generation of students go coco for a beefy paycheck and commit themselves to jobs they know are not noble. I wonder, why are so many people from the "Ag" school going into I-banking? Why are almost all ILR students going into management, even though most of the professors are fiercely pro-labor?
Why are my computer science friends, who abhor conventions like deoderant, suddenly selling out and taking jobs as drones coding for Goldman Sachs? Why are some of the people I once revered for their creativity now pledging their wacky minds to helping Philip Morris make better ads?
And yet we'll join the ranks of the power-mongers, all the while mumbling justifications like, "It's only for a few years." Then the years will go by, and you know our idealism will fade as the vigor from our youth dissipates. Any former inclination of where we wanted to end up will dissolve as the defense mechanisms of our minds re-write our values to rationalize our actions.
Personally, I think we've fought through too much to now be yoked into slavery or take anything besides a job we love and respect. We know too much to devote our lives to Gimplementing someone else's messed-up vision. And Cornell has prepared us to rise to the top of whatever field we go into, even if it's a less lucrative and more noble one. Sure there's more monetary reward for mediocre people in I-banking, but we were not brought up to be mediocre.
Look at you - you're the shit. Ninety-nine percent of the world never goes to college, and you're about to make it through the hardest-working ivy league university. You're a hot commodity. We mistakenly think we can't make it if Big Brother doesn't hold our hand, so we prostitute ourselves in exchange for the security that he provides.
Basically, the powers-that-be need us. We are the best-trained, best-equipped soldiers to arrive on the horizon, and we have not yet pledged allegiance to either of the warring factions. If we join companies like Chevron and Citibank their position of power is secured. If we join the people they oppress, they will have a serious force to contend with.
As students at an elite institution, we have been entrusted with the best resources humanity has to give us. We can either use them to propel ourselves even higher above the masses, or recognize that no one is better equipped to help the world than we are. Equipped with the reality that we'll succeed even if we go into a noble profession, this week at the Career Fair, let's not sell out.
Nathan Wilson is a senior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. The North Façade appears every Monday.
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