Wed 14 Sep 2005
While seniors worry about what they’re going to do in “the real world” — two examples here and here
– they need to take into account that they’ll probably end up in a job or occupation due to a random conversation and serendipity.
Several notable Williams examples:
Bernard Bailyn ‘44: Professor Emeritus of History at Harvard, President of the American Historical Association in 1981, won two Pulitzer Prizes, the National Book Award, the Bancroft Prize, … you get the idea. When applying to Harvard graduate school, he was worried that they wouldn’t admit him because he hadn’t majored in History at Williams (he was an English major). His faculty advisor told him, "Don’t mention it; if they don’t ask, don’t tell." Happily for generations of historians, they didn’t ask.
Bethany McLean ‘92: Reporter at Fortune, credited with being one of the reporters who first pointed out chinks in Enron’s armor, co-author of The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron. As to how she got to Fortune:
I have never been a person with a huge plan. I was on my way to business school as a third-year analyst at Goldman. And I just got this idea in my head that I wanted to be a business journalist. But there was not this big mission to be a magazine journalist. Frankly, no one would hire me. I had no clips, no experience. People were like, "yeah, right." I was willing to get a job sending faxes somewhere. Honestly, I got lucky and got a job at Fortune.
At that time, Fortune hired people as fact-checkers. So it was okay that I hadn’t been a reporter before. They were just looking for someone who could calculate compound annual growth rate and read a balance sheet. So I really got lucky.
The guy I was dating at the time, his father knew someone at Fortune. I said,
"Why don’t you send my resume there," and he’s like, "yeah, right." But through
the fact-checking door, I got in. So it was purely random.
Jimmy Lee ‘75: Vice Chairman of JP Morgan Chase, known as a major dealmaker on Wall Street, the subject of a cover story in Forbes (April 17, 2000) entitled, "The New Power on Wall Street." His business journey started at Williams when his girlfriend at the time, Beth Brownell ‘75 (now his wife), realized she couldn’t make her job interview with Chemical Bank and urged him to take her place instead.
I’m sure Ephblog readers have had similar experiences. So seniors, take a deep breath and trust a bit of your life to fate. As Steve Jobs notes, “Life is random.”
September 14th, 2005 at 2:57 pm
I am as big a fan of fate as the next Eph, but is the lesson here really that seniors should “trust a bit of your life to fate?” My takeaways are:
Bailyn: Listen to your Williams advisors. Do what they say. Stay in touch with them. (Personal thanks to Professors McPherson, White and Burns for giving me good advice 15 years ago.)
McLean: The importance of networking, of using all the connections that you have. Also, take any job in the field you want to enter — even if it isn’t really the job you want — because once you are in a firm/industry, you will have chances to do what you really want to do. But, first, you need to get into the club.
Lee: Find a good Eph women. Do what she says. Live happily ever after. I have mentioned this point before.
September 14th, 2005 at 3:10 pm
I suppose those lessons can be gleaned as well. However, that’s three things you have to remember, rather than one ;).
I pitched the “Life is random” thought because so many students — at least when I talk to them — have their life planned out 10 years into the future in an anal retentive fashion: “I got into Williams so I could get into Harvard Law. I’ll be Editor of the Law Review and then go to work for Bingham Dana. I’ll be a Partner at 35….”
Every classmate I’ve talked to is always baffled at how they got where they are. For example, I didn’t know the difference between a keypunch machine and a computer at Williams. (Literally — on a college tour I pointed to a keypunch machine and proudly announced that it was an IBM 1130. With that, the Lab Manager shot out of her office and announced, “Oh no, that’s keypunch, the computer’s in here,” pointing two rooms away.) Twelve years later, I was Product Manager, Operating Systems, for the eighth largest computer company in the world. Go figure.
September 17th, 2005 at 12:58 am
Here’s my serendipity story:
I was a Political Science major/Environmental Studies concentrator. Senior year, I knew I wanted to do “environmental policy stuff” in the Pacific Northwest. (Thanks to Econ prof Bill Jaeger’s Winter Study ‘94 “Spotted Owls and Pink Salmon” class where we travelled the Northwest for three weeks working our way through Bill and Kai Lee’s rolodex.)
But putting that plan into practice wasn’t all that easy. There weren’t many entry level jobs in the environmental field, especially outside of DC. I spent the winter getting pretty stressed out. Finally, by March, I just relaxed and decided that if things didn’t work out, I’d ski bum for a while.
Serendipity stepped in big time. Shortly after I made the decision to “let go,” I was scanning the classifieds in High Country News (I think). I spotted an ad for a paid internship position at River Network, in Portland, OR. I fired off a resume and my refences — among them was Professor Harvey Carter, who had taught environmental law that spring.
I got the job, and moved out to Portland three weeks after graduation. Six months in, the guy who’d hired me (whom I got along with really well) told me, “Most of the interns we’ve hired have masters degrees. But I knew Harvey Carter when he was a Vermont State Senator and I was just out of law school. I figured that anyone good enough for Harvey was good enough for me. That’s why I hired you.”
Never did get to ski bum.
September 17th, 2005 at 2:08 am
Jon: It may not be too late. If at some point you would come to realize that you will never do it, would you then have regrets?