Brandon Moyse | Making the most of an opportunity

What's your dream job? Mine is to be a spy for the CIA, a movie producer or a baseball closer.

Now compare whatever you came up with against what you're actually likely to do when you graduate. I'll bet the two are different. (You can send my check to the DP.) Sometimes that's because your dream jobs are truly out of reach - coming from Canada, I was doomed to hardball mediocrity from the start.

But I still could be a movie producer, maybe even a CIA spy. I could've gone to film school or taken courses in Urdu and Pashto and gone undercover in Asia. Instead, I'm likely going into finance. It's the most secure, highest-paying option that genuinely interests me, and I decided to pursue it before the recession hit. Moreover, it's socially acceptable and more guaranteed than becoming a spook or the next Brian Grazer. My parents aren't paying $40,000 a year so I can "find myself," after all.

I know that I'm not alone. Just look at all the soon-to-be Penn graduates spurning investment banking and consulting for law school and resume-building jobs in the less-prestigious but more-stable finance arms of Fortune 500 companies - something they're doing "out of necessity," according to Career Services director Patricia Rose. It's not as if these students had an epiphany halfway through their senior year that their life ambition is actually to spend their Saturday nights writing 15-page briefs or streamlining a company in Wyoming - they're just choosing the next safest, next-most lucrative options out there. It happens every recession.

What ever happened to living a little, taking a risk? Where is that good old entrepreneurial spirit the University loves to tout? Trite as it is, when life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Graduates should look at the current economic environment as an opportunity.

"For some students, [the recession] is liberating," Rose said. "In previous years, it was much easier to go into financial services and consulting. So it was hard to say no to those jobs."

It isn't easy to watch four years of hard work and expectations go down the drain with Bear, Lehman and Merrill. It's hard to imagine the student who has his offer revoked turn around and say: "Sweet! Now I'm free to open that T-shirt store I always wanted!"

We've been conditioned to be risk-averse - major in something like economics or finance, avoid taking too many hard classes and go into banking, law or consulting because at least they have good "exit opportunities." (The idea of choosing a career on the assumption that you will quickly leave it boggles my mind.)

But soon-to-be graduate, this is your chance to try something you've always wanted to do or never thought of. Maybe that means something service oriented, like the Peace Corps or Teach For America. Maybe that means devoting yourself to your country and getting involved politically. Maybe that means starting a business - something that's never been easier given record-low interest rates, not to mention the fact that the Wharton Entrepreneurial Program will fund students' business ideas.

Go the traditional route and you might never go back. Ten years down the line, with a steady $500,000-a-year job and a family, there'll be too much at stake to leave it all behind to join the Peace Corps or become a T-shirt mogul. And I'm not saying you won't be happy (I know I would be with a high six-figure salary), but you will have missed your chance.

In "Fight Club," Brad Pitt tells us, "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." And while that may be dramatic and oversimplified, it's advice that might serve the graduating class well. Of course, with another year left and an internship to look forward to, that's easy for me to say.

Brandon Moyse is a College junior from Montreal. He is the former senior sports editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. What Aboot It, Eh? appears on Thursdays. His email address is moyse@dailypennsylvanian.com

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