Deirdra Stockmann: Beyond grad school

So that big job at Enron fell through. Accenture isn't hiring. The connection to your dad's college roommate's sister's consulting firm is looking a little shaky. Even your safety net of programming at a dot-com has all but collapsed.

You have spent the last three years going to class to get the credentials you needed to slip into that cushy 9-5, starting at 70K. After all, you will have an Ivy League education. Why expect anything else?

Two years ago you began shunning the prospect of more school. Come May 2002, you would never again have to pull an all-nighter writing a paper you could not care less about. You would no longer have to cram your brain with useless names and dates.

Then, reality hit. You are about to graduate. You are ready to take the job that you expected would be waiting for you, but it's not there. Your single goal of the last four years is evading your grasp.

Last Thursday, a few of your fellow students represented senior classes around the country in a New York Times article about the dramatic increase in graduate school applications. The tale was echoed in Monday's Philadelphia Inquirer. The logarithm seems simple enough: where there aren't suitably high-powered, high-paying jobs, there is grad school.

This thought process is currently guiding many 22-year-olds' decisions about how they will spend the next few years. But it is missing a few critical components.

If we have only been encouraged to pursue financial sector jobs, we have not been sufficiently equipped for life. If we think only about salary schedules and signing bonuses, we have not learned to be aware of society's needs or to consider how our skills, resources and interests can be applied to help improve the quality of lives beyond our own.

While the viewbooks, Web sites and speeches by our president trumpet the legacy of our founder, the attitudes of the student body and priorities of graduates reflect an unfulfilled pedagogical vision. Benjamin Franklin believed that experience was the best teacher. For him, the key to moral and social improvement was the application of knowledge. Education was to focus on real problems through a curriculum developed around the needs of the people.

Indeed, graduate school can be a useful means to this end. But insofar as education goes beyond the classroom, this type of learning occurs when post-baccalaureate study creates a forum for people to share their "real world" experiences and learn from each other how to put their knowledge into action. When programs are flooded with students who went from K to B.A. without pausing to experience the world as a non-student, or better, to be a student of the world, some of this opportunity is lost.

Fortunately, heading to another institution of higher learning four months after you leave this one is not the only alternative or last resort, as recent media coverage has suggested. While it may be a good option for some students, it certainly is not the only way to enhance a resume or gather human capital. As young, energetic, intelligent citizens, bound by relatively few responsibilities, college graduates have a lot to contribute to non-profit organizations and public service programs.

Had our education been less about empty numbers and facts and more centered around developing meaningful solutions to actual problems, we might not see ourselves as victims of a slumping economy at all. Instead we would understand ourselves as individuals empowered with education and resources to help those in need.

Sure, there is a place in society for consultants and I-bankers, and I am confident that this university has helped prepare many people for success in these careers. Yet, as Franklin might argue, the in-depth, experience these future Wall Street employees would gain from working in the public and non-profit sectors will only enrich their contributions to their respective firms and society.

Imagine a world where, in addition to JDs and MBAs, lawyers and CEOs came to the conference table as Teach for America veterans, having lived in Costa Rica for three years in the Peace Corps or as former welfare rights in South Philadelphia. Only when those in positions of influence become empowered through experience to make more enlightened decisions that affect all of society, Franklin's vision will begin to be realized.

Deirdra Stockmann is a senior Politics, Philosophy, and Economics major from Oak Park, Il.

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