It's time for a new UCS philosophy

Pie in Your Face
    By Sheela V. Pai

In the opening letter of the Undergraduate Career Services (UCS) Manual 1999-2000, former UCS Director Susan Hauser writes, "Your education at Yale is one of the best in the world. It has given you intellectual tools and habits of mind which prepare you to master a great variety of subjects and setting...Be confident and optimistic: you have a lot going for you." But here is my question: If UCS thinks Yalies are so multi-talented and multi-faceted, why do they think we can only be doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, or consultants?

For a senior at Yale, deciding to pursue a non-traditional career path can be the kiss of death, or at least a flirtation with unemployment. Just take a look at UCS' recruiting list: out of the 140 organizations listed, over half of them are banking and consulting firms. There is a small nod toward careers in journalism and public service with the presence of organizations such as MSNBC, the Washington Post, Teach for America, and the U.S. Peace Corps on the list, but that's really pretty much it. Even in the area of graduate study, UCS offers few resources. Though there are pre-med and pre-law advisors who organize law school and medical school panels, students have to hunt through cumbersome, often uninformative books and binders to find any information about graduate schools.

And the lack of diverse options offered by Yale's career services office is definitely not the norm. Over the next month, though it will be hosting presentations from the usual mix of investment banking firms, consulting firms, medical schools, and law schools, Harvard's Office of Career of Services will also host presentations about graduate school programs in journalism, social work, and national security studies. It will also hold workshops on not-for-profit job-search strategies. Its website even boasts separate pages dedicated to helping job searchers in the fields of art, media, teaching, social work, and government and politics. It's the same story at Stanford's Career Development Center. Not only does their recruiting list include over 200 organizations, but these organizations cover a wide range that includes theater groups, entertainment corporations, high school districts, advocacy groups, and even a winery.

Though in recent years UCS has made a half-hearted attempt to reach out to Yalies interested in non-traditional career paths, such as with the creation of the annual Public Interest Career Fair two years ago, it still has a long way to go. I myself am starting to regret my decision to take a year off before attending law school, because I can't seem to get my hands on much information about what interests me—jobs in journalism and public policy research—beyond names and addresses of different publications and think-tanks. Hauser proclaims in the opening letter that UCS is "not a placement agency . . . But we will do what we can to help you reach and realize informed decisions." But I don't think there is any way a list of addresses, without even a single contact name, can lead me to an "informed decision" about my future.

Many seniors in the same boat are finding themselves succumbing to the Cult of Goldman Sachs and McKinsey. People who were once looking forward to bright futures in areas ranging from academia to writing are now daunted by the lack of information available to help them follow their dreams. Faced with the choice of either: a) taking an assured and lucrative job in investment banking or consulting even though the work does not interest them, or b) being poor, but perhaps interested in their work, they tend to choose "a." If a student is truly interested in one of those two fields, it's great there are so many resources available to him. No student, however, should be shoved kicking and screaming down a particular career path just because there don't seem to be other options.

I sincerely hope that this year, under a new director, UCS will adopt a new philosophy. Instead of seeking to get as many seniors as possible employed or into a professional school, it should attempt to help as many seniors as possible break into the fields they are truly interested in. If Yale ever hopes to churn out alumni who are leaders in as impressive a range of career fields as universities like Harvard, it is essential that UCS stops being an obstacle and starts being the solution.

Recent Herald Columns by this Columnist:
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• Yale carpetbaggers keep out, 10/15/99
• At Yale, free speech hits a wall, 10/1/99
• Berkeley serves up superiority, 9/17/99

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