Senior Kick-off

I received a nice little e-mail from Duke the other day entitled "Senior Class: Save the Date." Obviously, the subject line got me excited. This was clearly the first in a long string of invitations to super-special senior activities, many of which must include some sort of free wine. What would this one be: A picnic? A gala? A soiree?

According to the e-mail, this "Senior Kick-Off" designed to "equip rising seniors like yourself with the information, strategies, and resources that you will need to be successful in your job search this year." Call me naive, but I thought I still had 25 percent of my education left, and I was hoping to get a better idea of my strengths and passions before choosing a career, but apparently there's no time for that. You see, Senior Kick-Off is today. That's right, it's not the first day of classes; it's the first day of your job search.

Actually, I feel like a lot of my time at Duke has been geared more toward making me an attractive job applicant than purely toward education. It seems like the seniors are always wearing suits and flying around to job interviews, juniors are preoccupied with finding internships and sophomores are stressing about what major (read: career path) to choose. Freshmen aren't exempt either; the Activities Fair this Friday serves the dual purpose of finding something to fill your time and finding something to fill your resume. It's probably a good idea to keep one eye looking toward the future, but I feel like a lot of us are staring straight at it wearing blinders.

What ever happened to the idea of college as a place where young people came to be exposed to new ideas or to develop intellectually? Duke has a core curriculum that is supposed to ensure that all students take a few seminars and a few courses from a wide range of disciplines, but students rarely seem to put any brainpower or intellectual effort into the courses they're "forced" to take to fulfill requirements. Instead, a lot of us just end up doing what we need to do in order to get a decent grade. We can write stellar papers, but when was the last time you had an earth-shattering discussion in one of your classes? I've had a few, but I don't think they're the norm.

There are those who believe that the purpose of college is to get a career. I don't really agree with that point of view, but I respect it. However, a deep intellectual discussion isn't just helpful for those people who are looking to develop their mind. Those discussions about big ideas and old books are important because they help us develop our passions and interests, which in turn gives us a sense of direction. The lack of this sort of cerebral environment at Duke is quite evident. Without any idea of what we want, we end up plugging ourselves into life paths that meet some conventional idea of what success looks like and just crossing our fingers and hoping that we'll be happy.

A lot of graduates end up working in consulting or investment banking because for some reason that's become the path of least resistance. With so much pressure to be successful (which means having a job, of course), we don't have time to ask ourselves if we think I-Banking is a worthwhile use of our talents; it probably hasn't even occurred to many of us to ask that question.

This sense of urgency, cultivated by having events like Senior Kick-Off on the first day of school, is both false and dangerous. Duke has an interest in seeing us employed upon graduation. It looks good on their recruitment materials if they can claim that such-and-such percentage of graduating seniors had jobs. They don't really have an interest in making sure we lead fulfilling lives-that's our responsibility. It's also our responsibility to take time to find out what sort of life we want to live. If you don't know what you want, maybe the first step isn't a workshop on networking; maybe the first step is something as simple as raising your hand in class.

Julia Torti is a Trinity senior. Her column runs every other Monday.