<p>I graduated from Northwestern University in 2008. I wish I hadn’t ever enrolled. I wish I’d been more realistic about my options. </p>
<p>This is just the advice of one person, but most of my classmates feel the same way. Here’s what I would do differently before applying:</p>
<p>1) Sit in on multiple lectures: If you don’t find them utterly fascinating, ask yourself if you really want to devote four years of your life to them. </p>
<p>2) Find out what gets people hired in careers you’re interested in. Want to work for a congressman? Your best bet is to take multiple internships on the Hill and read everything you can about the legislative process. Northwestern is a long way from D.C.</p>
<p>3) For that matter, find out what it’s like to work in a field. Shadow someone who works in the field, volunteer, or take an internship. You might be surprised at how tedious and stressful the glamor jobs are. Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, refers to campaigns as “hell.” </p>
<p>When I got into Northwestern, I was excited. I wanted to change the world. It was going to be wonderful. Now I’m stuck in a boring consulting job with other disillusioned grads from NU and UChicago. Most of us saw it coming and we earn 40k/yr which is above average for the US, but we still regret our choice every day.</p>
<p>So what exactly would you have done differently? It just sounds like you’d have pursued different summer term employment and perhaps chosen a school closer to DC. That has almost nothing to do with NU specifically…</p>
<p>Oh, and I thought of one iron-clad reason you should sit in on multiple lectures: you need to see students reading the newspaper or playing online poker during class to fully convince yourself that the elite colleges are not necessarily the most fascinating places to learn.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s specific to Northwestern, but I do think that students need to realize that you’re not always better off picking the highest “ranked” school.</p>
<p>What would I have done differently? Gone to a less selective D.C. school. Or skipped college entirely. 4 years of internships in D.C., sitting in on lectures for free at GW and G’town, and self-teaching through the numerous free courses and reading lists. MIT has a free course site. Google Scholar indexes thousands of academic papers that provide more insight into how real research is done than my undergrad econ courses.</p>
<p>I have read that same thing about lecture classes from Harvard on down. Students are just impolite today. It’s an epidemic. Same at less elite colleges.
The rest is normal adjustment to real life. Obama is not changing the world much either. I thought consulting paid better though.</p>
<p>I get that this disappointment is typical, but I don’t think it’s unavoidable at all. </p>
<p>Kids just have to spend more time finding out how things actually work and planning their possible careers out. There are people changing the world for the better. It may be slow and incremental, but it happens and I don’t think we all need resign ourselves to a meaningless existence.</p>
<p>(and if life is meaningless and all jobs suck, then students should know that before they spend 100k+ on college, right?)</p>
<p>The grass always seems greener on the other side…here’s a hint: it isn’t. Be happy and fortunate for what you have. Northwestern will be a footnote to your resume in several years.</p>
<p>What I have is a job I never wanted and never prepared for. I studied economics because that’s the closest thing to public policy NU has for undergrads. We’re talking high-level game theory and econometrics, things you never use in entry-level business consulting.</p>
<p>The grass is always greener? That’s what you want to tell high school seniors with a passion for helping people? You want them to commit $100k+ to an education that won’t help them get a job in the field they’re going to college for?</p>
<p>I would be just as unhappy if I were alleviating poverty in Central Africa? My friends who skipped college or went to state school aren’t happy doing these jobs? Wow, I guess they’re lying to me.</p>
<p>College is not magic. You can experience it before you commit. It can open doors, but it’s not necessarily the best way to do it. It costs a lot of money. The information you learn is available at no or little cost.</p>
<p>“What would I have done differently? Gone to a less selective D.C. school. Or skipped college entirely. 4 years of internships in D.C., sitting in on lectures for free at GW and G’town, and self-teaching through the numerous free courses and reading lists”</p>
<p>You regret not skipping college entirely so you could be “alleviating poverty in Africa”?<br>
Is this an epiphany or a joke? </p>
<p>Forgive me if I have trouble taking either this thread or you very seriously. You graduated from a top university with an economics degree and have the gross misfortune of working in consulting.</p>
<p>If you find your consulting career vacuous and unfulfilling more power to you. I, like many others, have watched the best and the brightest sell out for years to the $ call of Wall Street, giving up opportunities to advance science, involve themselves in public policy, the arts, or government/non-profit service. </p>
<p>But instead of complaining that going to college was a worthless enterprise, gather up that resume you’ve been building these past 6 years to apply for a job in microfinance with a non-profit in the third world. Look for a job with the World Bank or the UN Capital Development Fund. If you think for one minute that “self-teaching” by taking a few online courses would otherwise qualify you as hirable, open your eyes and look at the line outside your local unemployment office.</p>
<p>YOU’RE “stuck” in a “boring consulting job”??? Unstick yourself. Stop posting on CC and focus instead on answering job ads where your skills and knowledge can be put to better use. </p>
<p>P.S. Count your lucky stars you’ve come to this “epiphany” at age 24 rather than 44.</p>
<p>I can think of two of my NU contemporaries who went into politics - Patti Solis Doyle, who was Hillary Clinton’s confidante and chief bottle washer for many, many years (and also worked on the Obama campaign at a high level) and Daniel Pink, who worked for then Sec of Labor Robert Reich and then went on to become then VP Gore’s speechwriter. I am surprised if you were so interested in DC schools that you chose NU. I’m also surprised you then majored in econ - why not poli sci?</p>
<p>There are tons of connections to be had - this is the time to work them. Good luck to you.</p>
<p>I’ve sent out 1000+ plus resumes. Nobody cares about a degree from Northwestern. They want people with experience as a professional in the field or an advanced degree. I only have 3 summers of non-profit internships. That’s not enough anymore, and frankly I don’t think it should be. Why should anyone hire you when you can’t do the job?</p>
<p>Yes, there’s a recession, but we graduated before the recession hit. The simple fact is that you can spend four years of your life better preparing for an interesting career and you can do it without racking up tons of debt. Is anyone disputing that? Was I not told that I could break into any field I wanted after I graduated?</p>
<p>And how is this a matter of opinion? Northwestern is billed as a place that is guaranteed to prepare you for a life of leadership in the field of your choice. It didn’t do that for anyone I know. Most of my friends are unemployed and live with their parents.</p>
<p>I smell ■■■■■. A new poster comes on just to bash NU and does not even know the right salary for a consultant job he claims to have–hint-it ain’t $40 K.</p>
<p>I think the problem isn’t NW. It is the expectations of college grads –</p>
<p>I was there 20 years ago too. </p>
<p>I loved my undergrad experience, but the job market was horrible, the entry level jobs were all sales or “beneath” me and involved tasks that I could have done in high school. </p>
<p>High School kids should be told they will NOT be hired into the job of their dreams just because they have a degree.</p>