For the past year, every time I have sat at the breakfast table, with my oat bran cereal and mug that holds 4 cups of coffee (give or take a quarter cup) and looked at the front page of the New York Times, I have felt a knot in my stomach. Because barely a day has gone by when there hasn't been some sort of ominous story about the economy. Last year about this time it was the decline of the dollar, and then it was a rise in unemployment, and then it was the mortgage crisis, and then the folding of Lehman Brothers and the government takeover of AIG and Fannie May and Freddie Mac and the layoffs on Wall Street and suddenly the world seemed to be crashing down around me, a feeling no doubt made worse by the fact that I had only a superficial knowledge of investing and Wall Street and the economy to begin with. It's true that the things you don't understand are more scary than the things you do. I feel as if I had a thorough knowledge of what was going on I wouldn't sit at the table paralyzed by fear for my generation's prospects and the idea that we are going to have to deal with the serious, serious mistakes of our parents.
My fears about the economy in general have only been made worse by the fact that until recently I've been having a sort of quarter-life-crisis (thank you, John Mayer, for giving the sudden feeling of having no clue where you are headed at the age of 20 an actual name!). This semester has been really formative, because it has shown me that two of the careers that I had been tossing around really aren't for me. First, taking this class on the business of not-for-profit management has shown me that I'm really not cut out for business. I don't have the slightest bit of business sense, as shown by the fact that my teacher's comment on my midterm research paper was essentially "You missed the point of this assignment, but great sociology paper" (I got a B, which although lower than what I usually get, I'm ok with, because I let myself get a B in one class per semester and this one is definitely it). And I honestly don't have any interest in getting better at it. Cash flows bore me to tears. So do business models of all kinds. I'm practical, but I don't feel intellectually stimulated by numbers.
I've also realized that I don't think that I'll be going into arts administration either. I love my internship, but mostly for the people who work there. Everyone is wonderful, but honestly I can't see myself going there day after day and doing that sort of thing. I need ideas and theories and to feel as if the things I'm doing are making a difference to the world on a grand scale, that I'm helping people.
Which leads me to what I think I've decided to do. I've been looking up public policy graduate programs, and I came upon social policy, which is a sort of boutique strand of public policy that focuses on, surprise, social issues like health care and poverty and the arts, and basically anything that affects people's daily lives. It's not as economics-driven (hooray!) as public policy. And as I was investigating different programs, I found that both Harvard and Princeton have dual phd programs in sociology and social policy, which is pretty much a dream come true. NYU's program (at the Wagner School for Public Service) beats out Princeton's (Harvard is first, obvi) by a lot. So I honestly think that's what I'm going to do.
With the economy showing no signs of getting any better, I might as well go get myself into a 7 year phd program. I mean, I love to learn, and thinking is kind of my strong point. And maybe 7 or 8 years from now the economy will be on the upturn and I'll be able to get a good job with the government, or even better, a think tank, and then I'll be able to make a decent if not extravagant living and actually be challenged by my work.
So maybe the paralyzed feeling I get at breakfast is a good thing. It'll drive me to do something that I might not have otherwise, had the economy still been getting better. And ultimately I think I'll be happier.
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