The paths not taken

Andrew Yang—founder and CEO of Venture for America, a program that encourages recent college graduates to pursue novel and entrepreneurial initiatives—recently published a piece in which he outlined the “six tracks” that he argues up to 70 percent of graduates from the nation’s top universities funnel into. Unsurprisingly, these six tracks encompass most of “The Big Four” industries Duke students are attracted to: law, finance, consulting and medicine. Yang adds Teach for America and graduate school to these four options to round out his six tracks. Is the pre-professional aspect of education disruptive to Duke liberal arts?

We’ve written about the pitfalls and opportunities with pursuing consulting and finance before. On the more general issue of pre-professionalism we fall much the same way: it’s ok to have specific career goals in mind and to create an educational experience which allows us to reach those goals. However, that ultimate objective should be the result of a period of self-reflection and analysis which we believe requires the resources, environment and stimuli of a liberal arts education. Moreover, falsely conceptualizing pre-professionalism as a necessarily myopic and rigid educational pathway limits the flexibility students still retain within these tracks. When seen in this way, being “pre-professional” is one of many pathways to achieving one of many goals we as students hold. Still, we caution against the fact that too many people forgo the “pre-” step of introspection and proceed straight to the professionalism.

Doing so cuts both students and society at large short. When students pursue narrowly defined educational pathways and goals, the distribution of student talent and education is skewed towards a handful of industries. The industries themselves are hollowed out as hordes of students pursue law degrees, for example, without any intention of ever becoming a lawyer. Moreover, overly-tracked education rewards perceptions of prestige rather than social value production; it values credentialism over the content of our education; and it encourages optionality—students keeping as many career paths open as possible—over intentionality in pursuing our goals.

Pre-professionalism originated out of old European universities, which continues to exercise a deep educational and architectural legacy on their American counterparts. In European educational models, students choose degree specializations attached to specific careers before entering the university. Yet compared to this European model, even the most pre-professional liberal arts education in the US still allows for significant flexibility. For example, a pre-med Duke students with no Advanced Placement credits has fifteen credits left over after fulfilling all of their pre-med requirements. That puts the onus on students to remain critical and reflective about how they design their undergraduate education and be intentional in their choices. And so we say to students: step back and think about what you really want to do and why.

All this aside, there are even bigger system forces at work that shape our educational decisions and career preferences. It has becoming increasingly prestigious to attend four-year, private, liberal arts colleges, which also happen to be the most expensive forms of higher education. To be able to pay off the exorbitant cost of higher education, students are incentivized to apply to high-paying jobs Why society places more monetary value on “Big Four” industries and more generally, exploring what other pathways of value will be the subject of our second editorial tomorrow.