What would happen if we knew exactly how much time we had left?
What if the fact of our mortality, a notion acknowledged by us intimately only in times of tragedy, was a routine companion in our lives?
How would that alter our personalities? The decisions we make? Our dreams of the future?
How would Bowdoin’s seniors, scrambling anxiously to secure our jobs and grad school acceptance letters, reconceptualize our embarkations into a life beyond Bowdoin if we knew for precisely how long the promises of the “real world” could be enjoyed?
Well for one thing, we’d be intolerably anxious.
People at Bowdoin deal poorly with just the stress of midterms—preoccupation with death would just be too much.
And yet, a definitive understanding of life’s transience might also shatter some of the illusions that are easy to harbor this close to graduation.
For starters, we might forego the belief that the successes of our lives need be tethered to our future employers.
We might be able to go out in the world without feeling the need to account for the cost of our time at Bowdoin.
It is undeniable that “the price of college” lurks subterraneously in the minds of every student, professor and administrator at the college. Bowdoin is expensive and it exists in a world dominated by innovations in finance, science and technology.
In this era, a liberal arts education just seems quaintly outdated. But, our relentless drive to justify the extravagance of our college years is a real shame.
It is tragic that Bowdoin—after schooling us in what has been eternally enjoyable—is also forced to counter the charge of irrelevance by pointing to the “unique skills” imparted to liberal arts students that prepares them for a life of “productivity.”
This situation is unfortunate for two reasons:
1. Because Bowdoin’s gift is that it teaches us to savor the riches of friends, sports, books, art, and nature. It is not that we receive the gift of productivity.
2. Because the narrative of the economic utility of a Bowdoin education seeps into the employment and general life decisions made by graduating seniors.
Those of us about to leave have recently learned that the skills and temperament needed to be successful in gaining employment are often the bastardized cousins of those traits that made us successful in school.
It is true when a returning alum or CPC counselor says that we are all “good enough” to thrive in the world of adulthood.
However, while the value of the student lies in his or her depth and curiosity, the value of a job applicant lies in his or her appearance and refinement.
Much of the quick study that we do to prepare for a job in these several months before graduation is a cynical twist on the learning we’ve done so far.
Rather than substantial, it is cosmetic. And it exposes the reality that Bowdoin students are funneled, subconsciously or otherwise, towards careers that commit us to an ideal of success that has less to do with what is beautiful and right, and more to do with conventionally materialist notions of what leads to happiness.
After nearly four years of reveling in the immense resources of this school, of living only for the timeless values of free inquiry or community service or even sensual pleasure without regard for the brutal realities of cost and consequence, many Bowdoin students suddenly turn away from a lifestyle that treats every day like the rarest and most precious of all gifts. An aside—for those whose time at Bowdoin has been beset by anxiety over how to pay for the barest necessities, the College owes an apology and some more candor about how accessible this opportunity truly is.
Our time in college, as we often say, will be the best four years of our lives.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the career of “finance and consulting.”
The character of the individuals in those professions is not compromised by the nature of their employment.
Indeed, it is blatantly irresponsible to generalize that all jobs in consulting or all jobs in finance are the same. That’s just inaccurate.
What is true, however, is that there is something incongruous about the fact that recruiters for those two industries abound on this campus. And that the number of applications they receive and hires they make is a veritable feast.
This disconnect resides in the fact that those professions, while not morally dubious, are often morally irrelevant.
After spending four years at a school that teaches its students to become liberal humans—in the sense that they should find joy in the many diverse disciplines that inspire genius and wonder—what sense does it make that many of those students will seek out careers that abstract so profoundly from what is human?
The only sense it makes is that Bowdoin students feel compelled to redefine “success” as we prepare for our next steps.
Many of us have said during this process, including myself at times, that the spiritedness of our time in college will not serve us once we move on.
We should be satisfied with a job that is simply challenging or high paying. We shouldn’t expect to be serving the causes or values or aesthetics that made life worth living while in school. Especially not right away.
This article began with a somewhat over the top thought experiment. To be sure, knowing our death date probably wouldn’t counteract the push to measure success after college with a different ruler than the one we had while we were here.
As defeatists say, “That’s just the nature of the world we live in.”
Just don’t be so ready to forsake the spirit that has and could continue to push you towards subjects that have been eternally meaningful: teaching, advocacy, art, politics, nature conservancy, music, ecological study, or writing.
In the end—and the end is always nearer than we think—it will make us happier and make the world a better place.