The past few days have been shrouded in shades of 1929. The Dow saw its biggest one-day drop ever, mammoth investment banks failed left and right, and Congress stubbornly refused to dip into its wallet to bail everyone out. In other words, if you were considering entering a career in finance after graduation, now may be a good time to reassess your options. And as students rethink their options, Georgetown’s Career Education Center should too. Long criticized for focusing on finance and neglecting other career paths, the Career Education Center should use this moment as an opportunity to expand its offerings beyond Wall Street.
The Career Center’s close relationship with financial institutions is going to make this a difficult shift to make. Out of the Career Center’s eleven corporate sponsors, only one—Abercrombie & Fitch—is not in the financial sector. But as banks around the world focus more on their own solvency and less on recruiting fresh college graduates, the number of jobs available to Georgetown students has plummeted. This trend will likely continue in the coming years, meaning that the Career Center needs to start being more proactive in seeking out companies from a wide range of industries rather than having banks come to them.
To be fair, the Career Education Center’s focus on the financial industry isn’t entirely its own fault. Georgetown students, many of them drawn to the thrills, challenges, and fat bonuses offered by investment banking, do their part to build demand for counseling centered around these careers. But for every future banker at Georgetown, there’s a future environmentalist or a future writer or a future engineer who need a little help to guide them along their career paths.
Career Center executive director Michael Schaub pointed out that while Wall Street banks are the biggest employer of Georgetown students, Teach for America is Georgetown’s second largest employer. The Career Center should do more to cultivate relationships with other service-oriented organizations like TFA, as well as companies that offer careers in the sciences and the arts.
One third of the respondents in the Career Center’s 2007 Senior Survey entering the work force were employed by banking firms. The overwhelming odds are that the proportion won’t be as high this year. It’s up to the Career Center to offer those whose plans have been flummoxed by the crisis, as well as those whose plans never received much attention in the first place, the wide variety of options they deserve.
