“What would you be if you could be anything and money didn’t matter at all?”
This is the question that journalist Farah Stockman used to open her book “American Made: What Happens To People When Work Disappears,” which documented the paths of three steel factory workers in Indiana after their plant was shut down.
The lives and prospective careers of students at the Claremont Colleges are drastically different than those of the factory workers. While many of us have asked ourselves and our peers the same question, our possibilities are entirely different: We have been given the opportunities to fulfill our dreams of being anything we want to be — and we are wasting them.
We have decided that money does matter and perhaps far too much.
The Forum, an open-submission publication at Claremont McKenna College (CMC), recently published an article urging its readers to reconsider why they want a career in finance. It warns about the dangers of mimetic desire or the tendency to mimic the aspirations of your peers and rival them.
Although I believe that the article brings an important concern to light, I argue that it is not mimesis that is forcing so many bright and capable students at CMC to pursue the worn-out path of a career in finance but, rather, it is fear.
In his social criticism, “Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life,” William Deresiewicz argues that elite liberal arts colleges, just like ours, have failed in their mission to foster individuality and critical thinking in their students. Instead, they became “trade schools” for white-collar professions.
Deresiewicz highlights how the existential fear of failure forces students onto the conveyor belt of lucrative careers on Wall Street: “The prospect of not being successful terrifies them, disorients them, defeats them. They have been haunted their whole lives by a fear of failure.”
And, of course, the definition of “successful” comes down to one metric here, which is — you guessed it — the number on your paycheck.
The chances of making a six-figure salary as a management consultant are exponentially higher than bringing in a stable, high income as a writer or an academic — so why even bother trying for the latter?
Forging your own path and turning your passion into a career is riskier than putting in the hours for interviews and case preparation, networking with alumni and chatting up your friends’ wealthy parents. The criteria is clear: Fulfill these commandments and thou shall be bestowed with a six-figure salary.
That is not to say that students who go into the world of finance are not hardworking. They are, especially the low-income, first-generation students who work twice as hard to secure these positions and fight for class mobility, rather than striving to retain their membership in circles of elites.
But many of the students who come from families with generational wealth are terrified of not being able to maintain the lifestyle with which they have grown up. They are unwilling to pursue their dreams and, maybe, fail. The fear of failure limits postgraduate pursuits and forces many to conform to the careers that guarantee financial success, even if they are not fulfilling.
When did we become so cynical about our own abilities? When did we become so lazy and paralyzed by fear? The chances of becoming a successful writer or restauranter, videographer, fashion designer, academic, artist or entrepreneur are still there. Sure, there is no clear-cut path to success in these pursuits, but don’t we, elite liberal arts-educated students, have enough drive, ability and passion to at least try to figure it out?
Why not redirect the effort and time you spend sweating over a job that you couldn’t care less about into building the career that you actually want?
We are lucky enough to have the resources, connections and support around us in Claremont, so why are we not using them? Why are we letting the fear of failure rule our lives?
I am not advocating for an idealization or even acceptance of downward class mobility, but I am challenging the assumption that trailblazing your own path must always lead to failure. As cliche as it may sound, be confident; be brave.
The factory workers in Indiana are putting in relentless hours of hard manual labor to get a toehold on the middle class because they do not have the luxury of a career choice. Meanwhile, we have endless possibilities laid out in front of us, but we are throwing away our passions, principles and years of our lives to secure our position in the utopic 1%.
The aspiring linguistics major turned investment banker, the non-profit founder converted to private equity, the wanna-be farm owner now an incoming management consultant — is this really what we are doing with the gift of a liberal arts education? The choice is yours to make. But before you make it, ask yourself the question that I opened this article with.
Are you going to be one of the sheep or are you going to be the shepherd?
Elizaveta (Lisa) Gorelik CM ’25 is from Moscow, Russia. She is graduating this semester with a degree in philosophy & literature. She does not have her life figured out and she’s okay with it.