JHJ-ug-final 4/8/05 2:44 PM Page 72 seminar, addressed to all senior concen- THE UNDERGRADUATE trators, with the subject line “Can I be an astronaut with my English degree?” It was meant in jest, but nonetheless hit a nerve. The answer was, obviously, no, or at least Working It Out not in the immediate future: four years of musing about authorial anxiety and unre- liable narrators seemed to have equipped by amelia e. lester ’05 me for, well, not much, really. The e-mail recalled a joke I had heard a few years be- The senior-year job hunt began as ter-life crisis. Part of the problem was that fore: “What did the liberal-arts graduate many do: with the purchasing of a suit at I had no idea what I wanted to do. Family say to the business major?” The cruel the end of the summer. Mine was a black, and friends o≠ered soothing platitudes. punch-line: “Do you want fries with that?” pinstripe ensemble that my mother as- “Nowadays people change careers seven It had haunted me ever since. sured me was trendy enough for a cutting- times” was a favorite. This only made me Graduate school was out of the ques- edge media job, yet su∞ciently conserva- more worried: I couldn’t find one job that tion. The process of writing (or more accu- tive to pass muster at even the starchiest of interested me, let alone seven. “Your job rately, not writing) my thesis had rendered law firms. As I stood suited-out in the doesn’t define you” was another, repeated the library a source of fear and loathing. store, gaping at the vision of not-quite first in consoling tones and then in an in- “I’ve realized that I just don’t have a love of convincing adulthood in the full-length creasingly exasperated manner over the learning,” confessed a friend who was ex- mirror before me, a typically astute sound- course of the fall semester as I found my- periencing similar di∞culties in making bite from E.M. Forster, the subject of my self increasingly unable to talk about any- progress. (She had become so frustrated senior thesis, popped into my head. “Mis- thing else. I received an e-mail from the that she had taken to referring to her the- trust all enterprises that require new English department announcing a careers sis as if discussing a particularly obnox- clothes,” he had warned (echoing Thoreau) ious ex-boyfriend.) Although I didn’t feel in his very first novel, written shortly after quite the same way—Forster and I shared graduating from Cambridge. As I stum- a special sartorial bond, after all— bled clumsily over the too-long the thesis process had not left hems of the pants, tucked the me overly enamored of the dangling price tags under the prospect of spending a fur- collar, and fiddled with the ther six, maybe seven, bulky shoulder-pads, I years in a state of book- couldn’t help taking bound hermitage. I his adage to heart. had also heard des- The suit—all somber perate stories of im- colors and rigid poverished graduate outlines—seemed students: there was a to symbolize a rumor circulating process I want- that many ate noth- ed no part in. It ing but ramen noo- marked the pas- dles for weeks on end. sage from the clois- Though not especially tered confines of money-hungry, I wasn’t college to the Real sure I could stomach the World, a place where scholarly lifestyle. there would be no more And so I had the hems handholding, no more of the pants taken up. It sleeping in past 11, and—if I was a loaded gesture toward were really unlucky and the working world, a sign to landed a job with no benefits— myself that I was about to begin no more health insurance. The suit the job-search in earnest. was my passport from dorm rooms to First stop was the on-campus re- boardrooms, from dining halls to confer- cruiting program, in which about half the ence calls. I didn’t want to go. senior class participates every year. It was By the start of the school year, my trepi- attractive for a number of reasons. With- dation had turned into a full-blown quar- out having to walk to the Mount Auburn 72 May - June 2005 Illustration by Chris Pyle JHJ-ug-final 4/8/05 2:44 PM Page 73 Street post o∞ce (a full seven minutes The suit went back in the closet, away!), I could submit résumés on-line to the pen died shortly afterward, and I employers who were specifically inter- began to despair. I overheard conver- ested in hiring Harvard students. sations between classmates about I was particularly excited about enter- “securing 12-month contracts” and ing recruiting because I had seen my debates about the best places to look roommate wooed from all corners by big for apartment-rental listings in businesses. There had been trips to New Washington, D.C. Another room- York to stay in expensive hotels for final- mate received her acceptance letter round interviews (she brought back the to a master’s program at Oxford. free flu≠y hotel slippers for me to pad What there was of a job search about in as I procrastinated, endlessly, was put on hold while I frantically over Forster’s Italian novels), cocktail finished my thesis. Returning to the parties at the Charles Hotel, endless lav- issue, I realized I hadn’t actually ish lunches. She actually returned home tried very hard to secure any sort of one day, after dining out at Harvest cour- employment, and when I had gone tesy of a large consulting firm, complain- after a job, it hadn’t been with any ing that she was sick of eating oysters. particular passion or direction. A The problem for me was that most of the wonderful careers adviser I met companies who came to campus to recruit with at the O∞ce of Career Services were of the banking and consulting vari- said I had been “treading water,” expend- The senior marshals, looking ahead to ety. The old English-major-as-astronaut ing energy on pursuing jobs I didn’t want Commencement 2005, are: (clockwise from problem returned, but this time it was (advertising, anyone?) because it seemed top left) first marshal Caleb Franklin, of Wall Street, not outer space, that was out all too hard to identify and then go after Leverett House and Los Angeles; Sheria Smith, of Winthrop House and Gary, of bounds. I was utterly unqualified for any what I really wanted to do. As a result, Indiana; Duncan Graham Wells, of Leverett job requiring quantitative skills. This be- the prospect of actually finding a job had House and Chevy Chase, Maryland; Silvia came clear when my roommate, all oys- become more and more remote, to the Scandar, of Kirkland House and Miami; tered out and set to join a major invest- point where I didn’t understand how any- Mahmoud Youssef, of Cabot House and Staten Island, New York; Dominique Nong, ment bank come the summer, coached me one gained employment at all. of Dunster House and Redlands, California; on potential interview questions. We did- When I asked undecided friends, I dis- and Michael Kalin, of Leverett House and n’t get beyond her first standard-scenario covered many of them felt the same way. Sioux City, Iowa. Missing from the photo- graph is Lacey Whitmire, of Currier House question, which she had been asked count- We were all scared of failure, and as a re- and Watkinsville, Georgia. less times and in numerous variations dur- sult had talked ourselves out of countless ing the course of some 30 interviews: How opportunities. Those of us who were not many Ping-Pong balls can fit inside a 747 yet set up wanted to reject the nameless, to succumb to the stability of the corpo- aircraft? I went blank. There was nothing faceless employers before they had a rate world. But at the same time, I think about Ping-Pong balls in The Canterbury chance to reject us. The typical Harvard that’s probably not for me right now, be- Tales. It was time to look elsewhere. student may have a résumé more padded cause I want the chance to prove myself in My only real interview was for an than a sumo wrestler, but that doesn’t a structured and established environment entry-level position at an advertising make it any easier to counter the in- before I attempt to break the mold. agency. I wrote what was, in retrospect, a evitable deluge of disappointments and I wish there were a more defined end to ridiculous cover letter, ridden with rejections that come with entry into the this story, but it’s very much a Senior clichés about “thinking outside the box,” job market. In fact, it may make the Spring work-in-progress. I’m still scared “enthusiasm to burn,” and something scramble for employment all the more of rejection. But I’ve resolved to send out about wanting to work in “a powerhouse di∞cult, because we have all become so more cliché-free cover letters, for posi- of creativity.” The word “dynamic” ap- adept at dodging any form of negative tions I believe myself well-qualified for, to peared with alarming frequency. The in- feedback. organizations I am genuinely excited terviewer asked me what my favorite ad Frustrated by a barrage of impersonal about.