05

Today I'll look at the most active threads since Friday. During that period, the most active thread was titled, "Why don’t college students understand that they’re supposed to preserve optionality?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Somehow this thread managed to escape my notice until just now and at 14 pages in length, I'm not able to do more than skim a few pages. Because I am unfamiliar with the term "optionality", I was immediately confused by the title. After reading the original post, I realized that the original poster simply meant "options". I see that the first poster to respond had almost idenical thinking. The original poster strongly believes that college majors and even first jobs should be chosen with the goal of preserving options. The poster recommends pursuing STEM majors and then working in the fields of investment banking or management consulting. Several of those responding have little regard for those fields and don't seem to believe any number of options would be worth preserving if working in such jobs were a requirement. Skimming this thread, it appears to be a rehash of a common theme of the college forum. The original poster sees the primary goal of college to be upward mobility, preparing students for a job which should put them firmly on a path for financial success (where "financial success" is defined as "wealthy"). Not explicitly said, but clearly implied, is that these students must, of course, attend elite colleges. The path of top high school -> elite college -> Goldman Sachs or McKinsey is somewhat of a DCUM archetype, aspired to if not always achieved by a number of posters. In contrast to this idea of the road to success is the view that the point of college is to get an education and that success is achieved through happiness and a range of goals beyond the purely financial. In some ways, this debate is a version of the STEM vs humanities clash that seem ever present in the college forum, but with a twist because the goal of the STEM degree is investment banking or management consulting rather than in a FAANG company. There are representatives of both sides of this dispute in the thread with many who see some truth in the original poster's position, either claiming to have followed a similar path or known those who did. In contrast are posters who are working in fields that they love and wouldn't wanted to have done things differently. As one of them says, "I’m 50 with a successful career and I can’t imagine anything worse than working for one of the Big 4 or similar types of consulting firm."