Better start preparing.

I am only 19. But I know I have already won.

I am here at one of the best schools in the world.

I am making some of the best memories of my life.

I don’t want to place undue pressure on myself to be constantly looking towards the next phase of my life when the current phase is already so extraordinary.

Whether I choose to be a doctor or an investment banker or something else entirely in the end, thankfully, is up to me.

Unfortunately, sometimes society places a limit or a timeline with which you feel you must comply in order to compete or even just be successful.

And so I ask: when did our culture decide that it is not only commonplace, but even expected of the nation’s greatest young minds that we should obtain – or at least compete for – our first job offer at this point in our lives?

Specifically 19.

Why not use this time to discern and learn and grow and change and try new things or deepen relationships?

Why place so much emphasis on figuring it all out right now?

Why not in three more years, like how it used to be?

Either way, I urge you to remember: You have already won.

By Jacqueline Cox

It’s a race we’re running with each other at these top universities. You get in so you can get out and work. It’s freshman year of college and people are already talking about having their next three summers all perfectly planned to have them placed into a position at a “top four” by senior year. Sorry – what the heck is a top four? Am I the only one who came into college not knowing that there were “Ivy League” jobs? My plans this summer consisted of lifeguarding and swim coaching, the same thing I’d done in highschool for the past few summers. It’s only freshman year, after all. I’ve still got time before I need to hunker down and sell my soul to a nine-to-five, right? Right?

To be honest, I’ve never been so sure that such a lifestyle was meant for me, anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I one hundred percent plan to get a job after college – I’m not forgoing society to live out the rest of my days in a yurt or anything – but I never saw myself deliberately pursuing a career that I have no passion for other than the salary. If I’m going to be committing myself to an indoors desk job, it’s going to be for something I genuinely enjoy, or in a place where I feel as though I’m making a genuine difference. Upon arriving at college, I was surprised to see how many people just don’t think like that.

The general pattern seems to be that students at elite universities want elite jobs, and elite means high-paying, prestigious, and nothing about individual passion or world improvement. It’s a bleak reality, but some would say it’s a pragmatic one. Work to live rather than live to work. The job might suck, but it can fund a killer vacation.

Now, although choosing a rigorous, high-paying job may fund a luxurious life, these are also the types of jobs that require an outrageous number of hours, especially when you first start. And while superiors will tell you that it gets better eventually, to move up in any job, especially these, requires dedication and often hours worked overtime.

roads lead to consulting.” After graduation, whether our degree is in finance or gender studies, we take off our cap and gown and replace it with blazers and neck ties, our uniform until our life’s end.

I know that I’ve got the rest of my life to work, which is why I’m in no hurry now to impress future employers with a fancy internship my freshman summer. I know that I’ll get a decent job one day, whatever it is, which is why I don’t get intimidated when someone tells me I need to hurry up and get a “real” job. I know that the uniform isn’t the only way of life, which is why I pour my time into the discernment of my passions rather than the bolsterment of a superficial network for a job that I wouldn’t even enjoy.

The unfortunate reality of corporate America is that after college, you’re going to spend the rest of your life working until retirement. If your life is going to be consumed by your job regardless of which position you chose, you might as well choose a job that you’re somewhat passionate about.

The job hunt after college becomes a second round of the college application process. People get so. Damn. Competitive. At an elite university, most students are going to be offered jobs that are impressive no matter what they are. The sad thing is that for a lot of people, regardless of their unique undergraduate degrees, a lot of the jobs that students take after college look the same. As the saying goes: “all

You could say that the ability to seek a job in accordance with one’s passion is a privilege that some people simply cannot afford to have, and you may be right. But privilege is also using your family’s connections to land a spot in a “top four.” Privilege is also being hired by a firm solely because of the name of your university and not your skill set. There is nothing privileged about desiring a job that is fulfilling and in which one has the capacity to make change in the world.

As the days go by, I’m continuously surrounded by people who have the mindset that the uniform is the only path to a good life. I know that dreary years await me if I finally give in and put on the uniform, but sometimes I feel like I’m running from a hurricane. There’s just no escape. How am I supposed to set foot into a world and accept a job just because it makes me money when I don’t even know who I am, what the nature of the world is, and what my place should be in it?

By Jane Miller