How a finance internship changes your politics

Your first day at the bank and you’re kind of nervous. After all, your concentration in anthropology and Vault Guide readings might not have provided you with enough background to actually be a productive human being. But at the office, the analysts are friendly and act interested about your thesis. The higher-ups are charismatic, if not enigmatic. They like you! You start feeling like a part of the team.
During the get-to-know-you activities, they find out you’re interested in politics. Oh, so you like politics! What do you think of Obama?
Your first-day stomachache comes back. Don’t these veteran bankers imbibe Peggy Noonan’s Wall Street Journal Obama-bashing drivel? Surely they don’t, like you, believe that the nation is taking a historical step towards ensuring civil rights for gay and lesbian soldiers fighting for our country?
Luckily, another intern steps in with the correct answer. “I just can’t take the way he’s trying to blame everything on the financial industry. It makes the whole country mad at us and we didn’t even do anything.”
“Yeah,” chimes in an analyst. “A man cursed me out and spit in my face on the subway last month after screaming ‘You f-ing suits f-ed up the country. I was humiliated.’”
Suddenly, your loyalties come into question more starkly than they ever did at Harvard. Thousands of angry protesters outside Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs? But those banks are filled with other VP’s with framed pictures of cute grandkids on their desks, not to mention your roommates. And this summer, as you sit in the subway in your suit and tie, some Joe Six-pack might spit in your face. This is a situation that echoes the Harvard debates on whether or not it’s “okay” to go into finance. You go for the money, the prestige, and to be around highly motivated and intelligent people. Maybe you even actually think mergers and IPOs are fascinating, and think that you can be successful in predicting the market. But many at Harvard who don’t choose the finance path will judge you negatively for your choice. Even President Faust seems to think that somehow, you are contributing less to society or less socially conscious because of your choice. So what? Kids going to Amnesty want to feel good about themselves, Peace Corps volunteers love the thrill and adventure, and kids working on campaigns want some egomaniac to win something. It doesn’t seem fair that the positive externalities of their choices makes you seem like a creep.
Later that day, you are researching the health care sector when you come upon a pharma company that experienced a huge drop in its stock price after the healthcare bill passed. The company expects to lose $200 million dollars in revenue this year because those on Medicaid won’t be able to afford the AIDS medicine that it produces. And that’s not from a press release or a silly Tea Party slogan. You feel your liberal-colored hipster glasses slipping.
Image Credit: Flickr (Quinn Dombrowski)