As many of us begin thinking about what our post-graduate plans are, I wonder how much of our post-Princeton life will be shaped by who we were before we got here, and how much by who Princeton has made us. On the one hand, we are more worldly, hopefully more intelligent and certainly better at arguing a point, academic and otherwise. But, as Hamid's book implies, we are also more obsessively ambitious and convinced of our capabilities to become powerful people. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that we are groomed to join the elite ranks of the world's sole superpower.
After we spend four years at Princeton researching, writing, sleeping less and less and working more and more until we get a grade that satisfies us with a sense of accomplishment, many of us find it hard to leave that world. To remain successful and reap the benefits of a Princeton education, we must pursue high-powered careers, whether in finance or academia, government or nonprofit work, or elsewhere.
Our work ethic and drive has not gone unnoticed by others: In an article in "The Atlantic," David Brooks described the schedules of what he calls the "Future Workaholics of America," Princeton's undergraduates: "crew practice at dawn, classes in the morning, resident-adviser duty, lunch, study groups, classes in the afternoon, tutoring disadvantaged kids in Trenton, a cappella practice, dinner, study, science lab, prayer session, hit the StairMaster, study a few hours more."
Sound familiar? Brooks described it as a "slave-driving" schedule but noted that he didn't find any of us who truly considered living any other way.
But there's a catch, my friends. Brooks wrote the article back in April 2001, before Sept. 11, 2001 and before the flood of investment banking recruiters on campus became a mere trickle. It seems that our relentless ambitions and hectic schedules have prevented us from realizing what's going on - in the words of Bob Dylan, the times, they are a-changin'. (Interestingly, Brooks also pointed out the effect our business has on our ability to keep up with current events).
At a time like this, with our economy crashing and at least one of our wars abroad faltering, the idea of becoming "the ones in power" is not so great anymore. What are we contributing to? What repercussions could our mistakes have? It might be worthwhile to hit pause on our frenzied lives and think if what we have become - those ambitious and high-powered individuals - is still who we really want to be.
In other words, is it possible that our ambitions blind us to the significance of the career and lifestyle choices we are making? I don't know. People say that you can't make a big impact in this world without power. Would any of us be strong enough, or stupid enough, to give up what we have earned as Princetonians, the world into which we have been granted entry, to travel a different path?
Whereas Princeton's conveyer belt of life has taught us to go to work like crazy and get a great job for our efforts, we should wake up and realize that the current crisis may conclude with a fundamental shift in the lifestyles we have adopted over the past four years. During times of hardship, you realize that a job as an investment banker is worthless when your bank vanishes into thin air. And what are you left with, absent your 100-hour workweek?
Unless you're a corporate CEO resigning with a hefty bonus package, you're probably not left with much. And I realize right now we're more concerned with the swath of internship and job applications that have displaced our academic lives (not such a good thing, considering midterms are upon us) and that we're often too busy thinking of our "next steps" to get too involved in the world around us, too busy living for the future instead of for the moment.
I just hope we don't end up like Hamid's character, wondering if it was all worth it, if the goals we thought we wanted lived up to their hype. I hope we don't take the immense benefits of attending Princeton and become bitter individuals, changed for the worse and blaming it on our home for the past four years.
In the end, my point isn't to stop applying for jobs, to stop applying for fellowships, or to pull a Thoreau and go live on Walden Pond. The point is to just stop, and think.
Sarah Dajani is a Wilson School major from Seminole, Fla. She can be reached at sdajani@princeton.edu.
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