this is what I look like
About a year ago, I wrote a post on the MIT Admissions blog titled “sellout’s conundrum.” I was a rising junior, and I found myself disillusioned with the many, many opportunities MIT had thrown at me: recruiting events with pretty-colored drinks and smiley Actual Adults, travel fellowships for far-flung countries and cultural exchange (whatever that meant), pre-professional clubs that boasted competitive application processes and even more occasions for schmoozing.
Rereading that post now, I’m embarrassed by some of the flowery language, the overwrought metaphors—“approximation of Maslow’s”, really? I had put so much effort into ensuring the sentences were lyrical, because I thought important ideas deserved beautiful vessels. But with distance, these ideas no longer seem to be as significant—in fact, to present-day me, the most striking thing about this blog post isn’t its content, but rather its lack of it. The post meanders. It doesn’t discover a final destination, because its writer didn’t know where she was going.
For a long while during my junior year of college, I wanted to become a professional writer, despite being a math major. I joined online groups for aspiring MFA students. I got serious about finishing my novel.
Still—I went to coffee chats and recruiting sessions. I applied to consulting internships and got rejected everywhere. I considered opportunities in finance, in software, in research. I told myself it was because, well—it was pretty unlikely I’d be fortunate enough to make a career out of writing. And I was lucky to have my MIT degree, my technical background—it’d be a waste not to use it. But I didn’t try very hard to apply to anything, because I couldn’t find the motivation to pursue any particular path.
In April of this year, in a truly wild whirlwind, my novel, You Had Me at Hello World, sold in a two-book, six-figure auction to a major publishing house.
Suddenly, I had money—more than I’d ever seen in my life. I had enough that I didn’t need to find a job after graduation; I really could just take a few years off to write. Unbelievably, the life I’d dreamt of since age eleven or twelve had fallen into my lap.
But the months after my book deal were some of the most slow-paced, stagnant months of my adult life.
The resounding question I always came back to was: now what? I had fulfilled a lifelong goal. I had gotten everything I wanted. And now I didn’t know what to yearn for.
I considered applying to Y Combinator. My brother and I kicked around some half-decent start-up ideas. We even ended up attending office hours with the YC CEO. But ultimately, I didn’t feel ready, and I didn’t want to start something for the hell of it.
I considered writing another book. Over the summer, I attended an intensive writing workshop with the intention of drafting another novel. And I do want to eventually write another one (plus, my contract is for two books, so I’d better). But…I didn’t feel particularly inspired. When the idea for You Had Me at Hello World came to me, it was like a jolt of lightning—I just knew it was the best idea I’d ever had, and that it was going to be the one I would spend the next three years of my life with (began writing it in April 2019, and it’s coming out spring 2022).
I considered selling out.
God, “selling out” is such a loaded term. At MIT, it means: declaring course 6 (a.k.a. becoming a computer science major) and going to Google or Facebook; cramming math in hopes of landing a position with a quantitative finance firm; signing on with McKinsey or BCG and claiming you’ll “only be there for a year or two”; or, in extreme cases, working for Big Oil or Big Defense. Like many other students, I used to meme about these archetypes often. Sellouts choose a comfortable salary over their real passions. Sellouts don’t care about using their elite education for good.
During the summer, I was trying to write a new post for MIT Admissions. I wrote the following:
Suddenly, I was a college junior with a book deal from one of the biggest publishers in the English-speaking world, and I felt like the biggest sellout.
“I traded one metric of prestige for another,” I told a friend. No, I was not interning at McKinsey or Jane Street. At the end of August, I would not receive an enviable return offer with stock options or health benefits. I hadn’t “sold out” to any of the careers one might usually consider to be “selling out.” In fact, I knew many might consider what I had done to be the opposite of selling out; despite attending MIT, despite switching my major to math, I had written a novel.
Instead, I had figured out how to commodify my art. I had even gotten a Boston Globe article out of it.
This sentiment was a bit too edgy for the MIT Admissions page, so I never published it. But it reflects how I felt. Which was worse: stifling your real passions during the 9-5 workday in exchange for prestige and money, or commercializing your real passion in exchange for prestige and money? I was no longer sure.
And I won’t delude myself. I hope my book will make some readers feel seen, that it will make them laugh and hope and fall in love fleetingly. But if I had wanted to maximize my impact on social good, I should have put my time and efforts towards, say, polishing my quant interview skills so I could make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, which I’d then donate. Or I should have become a brilliant computer scientist and taken that expertise to nonprofits that need people with such backgrounds. I wrote a book because I love writing, not because I had grand aspirations towards some larger, more noble cause. Side note: I am always skeptical when fiction is described as a vehicle for activism, or empathy, or whatnot. Maybe a good story is just a good story, and that’s okay. It doesn’t need to have some greater importance.
So I figured “selling out” was a subjective term, and it was time to reassess my priorities.
I figured that it was most important to build more of my skills, especially while I still get to wear the “undergrad” label, so I decided to declare a computer science minor. That doesn’t mean I’m about to send my resume to every tech company—I’d still like to work at a place with a mission I truly believe in. I love education a lot, but I’ve found that many edtech companies exacerbate, rather than alleviate, the educational inequality issues I care about.
What the hell am I going to do with the rest of my life? is probably the biggest question I’ve been grappling with during my college years, so it seems fitting that this is the first post of my newsletter. I’m technically a senior at MIT now, but will be graduating late due to the pandemic.
If you’re still reading, thank you for your time! I’d love to hear your thoughts as well, so please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Let me just start with, I feel ya. Back in high school I attended a summer student program at Jackson Labs in Bar Harbor. This is a program so prestigious that three graduates have gone on to win the Nobel Prize. I did my undergrad at Penn in bioengineering and then got my Ph.D. in bioethics at Case Western. I went on to work in scientific and regulatory affairs in Washington DC for the pharmaceutical industry.
I'm now a professional headshot photographer. I couldn't be happier with my career choices. I had wanted to get a Ph.D. since I was 6 years old. I am glad I went through with all my schooling and my first career. My biggest science career wins were helping to get the FDA's adverse event reporting system to be much more user friendly for doctors so that they would be more likely to actually report adverse events (and the number of adverse event reports actually went up as a result!), and helped convince the Secretary of Agriculture to get rid of a loophole that was letting "downer cows" that exhibited signs of mad cow disease back into the US food chain. But the partisan nature of DC was really getting me down. I had a huge passion for photography. But much of my personal identity was tied up in the idea that people knew me as being extremely smart. Professional photographers aren't typically known for being smart. I joke I could do my job now without ever graduating high school. So making that leap was VERY hard. But I did make that leap, and I am soooo thankful I did. I get to live out total photographer dreams! I shot behind the scenes in the tents and on the runways at Fashion Week in NYC. I got to give a talk on CreativeLive to an online audience of over 30,000 people! I get to go to amazing places and take photos of the events that go on. And these are events that I would NEVER have a chance to attend if I wasn't the photographer. And best of all, I get to have a flexible schedule, so I can pick my kids up from school most days and help them with school work, make them dinners, and put them to bed each night.
So Rona, when you are as smart as you clearly are, and are talented at soooooo many things, from the outside most would say, the world is her oyster, she can do anything she wants. But making the decision of what to do can be paralyzing when you are faced with so many options. Yes you are spoiled for choice. It's a much better place to be in than to have little to no choice at all. But still it is emotionally very draining to make that choice. You are left feeling guilty, going am I a bad person for "selling out" if I don't use my genius for good? What will the world not get if I instead indulge myself and choose to do a career that makes me sublimely happy? It might seem like an overly self centered and overly inflated view. But you seem blessed with the type of intellect and drive that really could make that difference in the world. So which path do you follow? The answer may be, many of them. You don't have to only follow one path. You can make career pivots. My advice would be try to find ones that make you wildly happy but that also allow you to make an impact on the world in one way or another, it doesn't have to be world peace or the cure for cancer. For example, I personally am not doing genetics research and creating cures the way I thought I would be when I was in high school. But instead I am now helping startup companies that do that critical research get seen in a professional light. It helps them get their funding to do their research. I also donate my services to causes I care about, like Project Place in Boston that helps get people the skills and resources to get off the streets and get jobs, housing, and hope. And even better, pretty much everyone who goes in front of my lens leaves with more confidence than they had coming in. They learn how beautiful and photogenic they really are. Making people have a better self-image is something I am so grateful to get to be a part of.
So just know, whatever you choose to do with your life, I am sure it will be a good decision. Seems like you have a pretty great track record at making great decisions so far. And if you make a poor one, no worries. We all do at some point. You can always pivot and find a new course for yourself.
was a bit too edgy » lol if i can post https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/how-to-save-a-life/ then you can post that
if I had wanted to maximize my impact on social good » ive thought about this a lot this summer, and it was a lot of going back and forth between "i need to use this education for good" and "but everyone tells me that whatever choice i end up making will be fine" and i dont know. its fine if i dont do the Thing That Will Benefit The Most People, but where should the line be drawn? how bad would it be if i just followed my nose and did what i wanted even if i end up not really "contributing to the world", whatever that means?