The Qualities of Life

In high school, most Harvard students strove to dot their transcripts with As and their resumes with extracurriculars.

Once they arrive at Harvard, these students either devote themselves to maintaining the shining grade point average they cultivated in high school or throw themselves passionately into an extracurricular activity they hope will prepare them for their careers or simply look good on their resumes.

During Harvard summers, many students feel guilty if they take jobs scooping ice cream or camp counseling, because they worry that such "fluff" will make their resumes look paltry next to those of their more gungho peers.

And during senior year, they worry about their future so much that they often sacrifice their dreams for the sake of stability--by going to law school or medical school or into investment banking when they don't really want to.

When does this cycle stop? If students are padding a resume or worrying endlessly about grades now, for what reason? Far too many are deferring their dreams for the sake of long-held or far-reaching ambitions whose results they may not even enjoy.

In his recent budget letter, Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles pointed out that students here increasingly think about life after graduation.

"Many of them are concerned about the effects of corporate downsizing, the reports of oversupply to the medical and legal professions and the difficulty of securing academic positions in many disciplines," he wrote. "While few doubt the value of their liberal education, they recognize that it is harder to predict a stable career path, even following years of professional and graduate training."

Finding a good job has certainly become much more difficult since our parents were in school. Forty years ago, a Harvard degree could open doors that it simply doesn't open today. Positions in academia are becoming more and more scarce as professors stay on longer and departments cut back their resources. The admission rate to medical schools hovers around 20 percent, and Yale Law School takes only seven percent of its applicants.

And attending a professional school does not guarantee that you will land a good job or that you will be able to work where you want to. In addition, with dual-career couples, even the perfect job could turn out to be flawed because one's partner does not want to move across the country. At Harvard, about one-third of those who decline offers of tenure do so for family reasons.

At some point, we have to step back and ask if all the scrambling for prestigious summer jobs, all the recruiting, all the frantic visits to OCS are worth it.

If you choose to work in a bike shop for a summer instead of doing research with a professor, will that really ruin the rest of your life? If you take a year off to travel around the Himalayas with a backpack while your corporate friends earn $40,000 their first year, does that mean you are a failure? If you work in a non-career-track job before you decide whether to go to graduate school, does that mark you as a loser?

Although it is hard to get a good perspective on the "real world" while at Harvard, it makes sense to think of a few things. First, not having your life completely planned out in your senior year is acceptable and perhaps might even lead you to do something gratifying you never would have thought of otherwise. Second, there is more to life than your career: family, friends, cooking, playing soccer, throwing around a frisbee in the park. Third, wherever the hamster wheel eventually leads you, you have to like what you're doing, or otherwise getting there was futile--no matter how much money you have or how well your colleagues know your name.

It comes down to a question of priorities, and being around so many overachievers can distort priorities. But once out in the real world, when the memory of Harvard fades and the pressures of life intrude, what becomes important is the quality of life you have--and not the number of listings on your resume.

Sarah J. Schaffer's column appears on alternate Fridays.