A prominent education professor at Harvard has begun leading "reflection" seminars at three highly selective colleges, which he hopes will push undergraduates to think more deeply about the connection between their educations and aspirations.
The professor, Howard Gardner, hopes the seminars will encourage more students to consider public service and other careers beyond the consulting and financial jobs that he says are almost the automatic next step for so many graduates of top colleges.
"Is this what a Harvard education is for?" asked Gardner, who is teaching the seminars at Harvard, Amherst and Colby with colleagues. "Are Ivy League schools simply becoming selecting mechanisms for Wall Street?"
Although others have expressed similar concerns in recent years, his views have gained support on the Harvard campus with students, faculty and even the new president, Drew Gilpin Faust, who made the topic the cornerstone of her address to seniors during commencement week. Faust noted that in the past year, whenever she has met with students, their first question has always been the same: "Why are so many of us going to Wall Street?"
IHTWell, sending 'our' brain trust to Wallstreet worked so good for the collective USA didn't it?
Maybe, today's LBN post by UpInArms,
Citi poised to fire thousands (6,500 jobs) - Report, is the cause for the 'reflection'? This is just one of hundreds of 'reports' about thousands of job purges in the financial sector since August 2007.
The pathway to success or the 'American bootstrap Dream' of "a good education + years of student debt = a better life one day" scenario is increasingly a tough sell.
This makes you wonder, what type of retraining will the 'investment/financial alchemy types' from Wallstreet will be receiving?
Retraining is the catchphrase when an industry evaporates or a bubble economy burst, which, in turn, leave thousands without jobs, a safety net, or a future.