There is much speculation about the long-term consequences of the current financial meltdown and the impact it might have on the career choices of young people today. Frank Rich in his Sunday column, while skewering Lawrence Summers as an example of the the old model of cashing-in on one's influence, quotes his replacement at Harvard, President Drew Gilpin Faust. “Find work you love,” she implored the class of 2008. The “most remunerative” job choice “may not be the most meaningful and the most satisfying.”
A day earlier, another article in the Times entitled "With Finance Disgraced, Which Career Will Be King?" also discussed the direction of top U.S. students, with some surprising findings.
According to the article, public service, government, the sciences and even teaching look to be winners, "while fewer shiny, young minds are embarking on careers in finance and business consulting."
Also, graduate schools of government and public policy are seeing a surge of applications. And those top students who are deferring graduate school may be choosing to join "Teach for America", which has seen a surge in applications.
Beyond the "disgrace" of finance, another big trend pushing young people in a new direction are public problems, which the article says is being influenced by everything from the 9/11 attacks to climate change.
“There is a big crop of people, like me, who grew up in a different time when public policy and public issues have been at the center of things.” So says Matthew McKnight, a young Dartmouth alum who joined the Marines upon graduation, and is now headed to Harvard for a joint degree in business and public policy.
Don Chamberlin, a professor of computer science at the University of California at Santa Cruz recalled that back in the early 1960s when he was choosing a career, a technical professional was respected and well paid. Money, he said, was part of the equation. “But the bigger part of the motivation for me,” he said, “was that I would be doing exciting and important work and that my contributions would be appreciated.”
It is refreshing to see that people - especially younger people - are understanding that our future - as a society and as a planet - depends on what I would term an appreciation for systems thinking. Our society is weakened when we groom an elite to create vast wealth for themselves, while we ignore long-term political, economic and ecological problems. The individual myopic pursuit of fast money was exemplified by far too many young graduates from the 1980's until recently. Now it seems today's newly matriculated are looking longer-term, and realizing that the opportunities of the 21st century are going to be in solving big problems, requiring joint efforts between the public and private sectors.
When it comes to making career choices, our current President provides a good study. As Rich points out in his column yesterday "Obama turned down the lucrative career path guaranteed to the first African-American president of The Harvard Law Review to pursue the missions of service and teaching instead. The potential rewards for our country, now that that early choice has led him into the White House, are enormous."
I certainly hope so.
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