What *not* to do in your college application

unalove
Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:25:16 +0000

The springboard between college and career is either too apparent or not apparent at all. I consider myself lucky that while I’m not pre-professional, and I do not see college as the vehicle to career, I still have a word document on my computer with a laundry list of jobs I think I’d like to pursue immediately after a a few years after graduation. These are not particularly pie-in-the-sky jobs (ie. work at Goldman Sachs, play in the NBA, etc.) but rather jobs I know I will be considered for by virtue of my having a bachelors’ degree and some experience in the field.

I know there are smart people out there who don’t have their stuff together, but sometimes they don’t appear that way on the surface. For example, one of my high school classmates (a smart kid, a generally tolerable kid, but a bit of a lazy jerk) was admitted to an superelite school (a school that is not Chicago, mind you) and FAILED OUT after his first year. Now he’s at home, taking classes at a not-well-known four-year college a mile from his house, and though he had a summer job as a barista, he got fired from that after he didn’t show up a few times.

I think the worst part about it is that he has no regrets about failing out of Super-Elite school. He has no regrets about being fired from Starbucks. And if you met this person at a bar and talked to them for an hour or two, nothing would strike you as amiss.