In many ways, I am looking forward to returning to the Washington University campus in mid-August. While seeing my friends and enjoying the fine cuisine of Bear’s Den (particularly the chicken quesadillas) are two of the many reasons I am eagerly awaiting my arrival in St. Louis, the main one is to return to the simple pleasures of college life-joys I have come to recognize and cherish after spending a summer working harder and learning more than I ever have before.
Now my experience as an intern on Wall Street might be atypical of most summer jobs. While I did become proficient at answering three different phone lines at once, making runs down the street for bagel sandwiches, and printing endless copies of reports, I was given actual projects to work on that were being used by my mangers with their clients on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, I was thrust into the trading floor at one of the top firms-a place comparable to the monkey house at the zoo minus the bars.
Here, I saw grown men throw Nerf footballs around like they were back on the elementary school playground while yelling all kinds of obscenities into the phone and at each other. The energy was intoxicating and I think I’ve found my calling in life, but I did not think the hours would be quite so long or that people actually worked quite so hard at their jobs.
Most days my alarm was buzzing at 5:45 a.m., and after braving the crowded subway and walking past vendors hawking t-shirts and other bric-a-brac tourists in New York seem to crave, I was sitting at my desk drinking the first of many cups of coffee at 7:00 a.m. No day at my job was ever the same, and each offered me the opportunity to listen, learn, meet some incredibly smart and witty people and do all sorts of interesting things with Microsoft Excel.
Lunch was a quick sprint up to the cafeteria (which I never actually had the opportunity to eat in) and back down to the floor, where I gobbled up my food at my desk. Up until the stock market closed, everything moved at a breakneck pace, and even after the bell sounded at 4:00 p.m., things were still busy. Finally, I headed out the door at 7:00 p.m. at the latest, and after stopping for dinner, picking up dry cleaning, and other such errands, I collapsed at home-tired, hot and counting down the hours until I would do it all again.
Basically, work is work-there’s really no play involved while you’re at the office. On the other hand, college is a giant playground of opinions and experiences. At Washington University, I definitely have my fair share of work, projects, and 15-page papers to write, but there’s always a social element to many events. Whether it be a study group or an extracurricular activity, there are always people actively engaged in the exchange of ideas. Sometimes a job can lack this form of academic energy, proving that the divide between college and a career is often greater than one would imagine.
For the most part, you move at your own pace in college. No one makes you go to class or study. I suppose you could adopt the same attitude towards a job, but most likely you would quickly become friends with the people at the unemployment office instead of being put on the fast track in your chosen career. If you fail a test, for the most part you are the only one who suffers, but if you make a mistake on the job, millions of dollars could be lost and other people could be adversely affected by your decisions.
In essence, college can give you the tools needed to think critically in a fast moving world, but it does not exactly prepare you for a work environment. This summer has proven to be a great learning experience because I’ve realized that in a “real” job, there’s no sleeping until the late afternoon or extended lunch breaks; no deep conversations about war, politics, or religion over coffee; no watching endless hours of Blind Date, Elimidate, or Dismissed on cable.
While at the University I have done and will continue to do many of these things; only now I will appreciate them more and realize that they will not continue indefinitely. Because next time I try this work thing it won’t just be about the summer-a full time offer will be in order.