I definitely think there’s an element of putting together a coherent resume starting early on in college, rather than just doing summer jobs at sleepaway camps or in fast food as was typical when I was growing up. I was incredibly fortunate to have an engineering internship at a local company that looked far better on my resume than most other people I knew.
However, that can still involve a huge element of randomness, for example there’s no way my S18 could have predicted his post-college job in consulting. But the various things he did during (and even before) college could be packaged coherently to make him ideally suited for his current role (which he loves). And it turned out a random internship (with our county government) during high school was what put him on this path and led to subsequent opportunities that were all interconnected (so his internship in a think tank had connections to his current employer, etc.). But he didn’t need to be in the management consulting club to end up in consulting, in fact running for (and winning) elected office has proved to be far more useful (since much of his work depends on the decisions made by politicians). There are lots of potential opportunities that can contribute to a career if they are packaged correctly.
You just need to be thoughtful and pick up things as they arise. And then think about what fits together and what the next step is. My S23 worked as (essentially) a part-time parking attendant this summer. But he’s doing astrophysics and it was a job at the observatory working for professional astronomers in their public events program…so its a step forward that working in fast food wouldn’t have been.
And I wouldn’t describe a kid aspiring to do research in astronomy as “pre-professional” in the way that the original article describes (“a prevailing culture that convinces many of us that only careers in fields such as computer programming, finance and consulting, preferably at blue-chip firms like Goldman Sachs, McKinsey or big tech companies, can secure us worthwhile futures”). This is just being thoughtful and deliberate in career planning, which far too many people don’t do.
I mean, my D18 is a ballet dancer and everything she did in college was “pre-professional” in the sense of preparing to be a professional ballerina, but nothing whatsoever to do with “careers in fields such as computer programming, finance and consulting, preferably at blue-chip firms”.