harvard crimson global essay

Harvard Crimson Global Essay Competition 2024

Types: Submission, Tournament

Scope: International

Registration

Entry Fee: $15

[email protected]

Participate

This competition encourages students to challenge themselves and explore different writing styles to ultimately strengthen their writing skills. Hone written communication skills and challenge yourself with university-style guidelines, while in high school.

The registration fee is US$15 per student and must be paid upon registration but can get 33% off with code: AMB336

Each participant is invited to attend best-in-class bootcamps, explore careers in writing, and compete for exclusive opportunities and global recognition!

• APAC (East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania)
• Europe, Russia, and Central Asia
• Middle East, North Africa, Central and South Africa
• LATAM (South America, Central America, Mexico, and the islands of the Caribbean)
• North America

Website: https://www.essaycomp.org/

Managing Organization: Harvard Crimson

Contact: [email protected]

Eligibility: Students between the ages of 13-18, in the 8th - 12th grade

Registration Opens: December 1, 2023

Registration Closes: February 7, 2024

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10 Break-Out Sessions

• Time: 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm

India is undergoing its economic, technological and demographic transition simultaneously. An old country is becoming youthful and adventurous with the passage of time. Young Indians like OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal are quietly taking charge of Indian ethos by becoming icons of audacious aspirations and tangible proofs of its potential, spawning startups that are becoming most valuable and famous than many legacy companies. How can young revolutionaries find ways to carry the older generation of investors, regulators, workers and consumers with them and what can other economies and founders learn from India’s momentous transition?

For over 50 years teams of student have volunteered to organise the St. Gallen Symposium. They have written countless invitations, met thousands of partners, and welcomed some of the most important personalities of their time on stage. Together with former members of the ISC we will reflect on the St. Gallen Symposium experience of cross-generational dialogue and collaboration, the lessons they have learned for their lives and on how the symposium has evolved. This session is organised together with ISC Alumni.

As the need for innovation is growing, the routinisation of well-structured creative processes within organizations is key for concurrent value creation. Prof. Susan Goldsworthy of IMD, this year's St. Gallen Symposium artist Javiera Estrada and Light Artist Gerry Hofstetter will discuss the role of collaboration in the creative process. Together, and in conversation with the audience, they’ll explore the way collaboration can drive creativity in various organisational contexts, and, on the other hand, the role of introversion and lone contemplation in creating something new.

Many employee volunteering and giving programs are presented as an employee perk, similar to casual Fridays or a team-building event. But treating workplace giving and volunteering this way fails to fully capitalise on the great potential of such programs: to foster employee personal growth, and address key societal challenges. The panel will particularly explore the potential of skills-based volunteering, its benefits, and the unique challenges that arise when moving from merely transactional volunteering to something far more transformative.

The investment landscape over the next twenty years will be radically different from previous generations. While there appears to be greater access to capital, there also appears to be much more volatility and debt with no clear dominant financing mechanism. Entrepreneurs, VC, Private Equity, and banks will have to find new ways to work together to create growth and stimulate innovation. How can investors and entrepreneurs better collaborate and find mutually beneficial agreements that balance risk and return?

The fashion industry accounts for 10% of humanity’s annual carbon emissions – more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. For long, the fashion and luxury watchmaking industry drove, together with the fashion media industry, unsustainable dynamics in the sector: generating more and more demand through an artificial cycle of new collections and seasonal trends. Businesses’ marketing, media as well as influencers thereby create a constant longing and demand for their products. How can designers, fashion houses and publishers exit this vicious cycle and, collaboratively, drive the transition towards more sustainable and ethical fashion and luxury watchmaking?

Media diversity, freedom of the press and freedom of expression in Europe are currently under threat. Journalists and independent media companies are increasingly joining forces across borders to respond to such challenges as well as to be able to continue to offer independent quality journalism in the future. This session will identify learnings from new media partnerships such as the Leading European Newspaper Alliance (LENA) and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) to identify how media can most effectively work together.

Technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship are key drivers of the modern economy and social mobility. Given their importance, we should strive to improve accessibility to tech, education and entrepreneurship across all backgrounds. Creating open and inclusive communities, especially with tech is important to accomplishing this goal, but it is easier said that done. Simultaneously, a third iteration of the internet – Web3 – has the potential to radically transform the internet of things and reduce barriers to access. How can these forces be effectively harnessed and directed for the benefit of all people and move the world forward?

Over the past decades, the tech sector, especially the internet of things, has become a central component of modern economies. Trying to catch up with the exponential pace of technological development, the US, China, and Europe are crafting rules of the game on digital markets. What are the emerging characteristic differences between regulatory regimes of digital markets, in the US, Europe and beyond, and how do they balance innovation and regulation? In light of strategic competition over tech dominance between the US and China, what are the opportunities and challenges for Europe in particular?

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the world of work forever. The fast and widespread adoption of remote work and an ever-increasing concern of employees with purpose and meaning on their job have intensified the war for talents. Reaching out to and concurrently engaging employees is key for businesses across sectors and regions. What learnings can be drawn from the pandemic as regards our approach to work? Has the world of work changed for the better? And what role does leadership culture and a new approach to hiring play going forward?

• A Demographic Revolution: Young India Takes Charge (with All India Management Association) 9:00 am - 10:00 am
• Collaborative Advantage Across Generations: Reflecting on the SGS Experience (ISC Alumni) 9:00 am - 10:00 am
• Collective Genius? Cultivating Creativity in the Arts and Beyond 9:00 am - 10:00 am
• Connecting Business with Purpose: The Potential of Skills-Based Volunteering 9:00 am - 10:00 am
• Financing the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs 10:00 am - 11:00 am
• Hacking the Fashion & Luxury Watchmaking Industry towards more Sustainability (with Condé Nast College) 10:00 am - 11:00 am
• M100 Sanssouci Colloquium@St. Gallen: Media’s New Power: More Impact Through Collaborative Journalism 10:00 am - 11:00 am
• Democratizing Access to the next Generation of Technology and Innovation: Communities and Radical Transformation 10:00 am - 11:00 am
• Varieties of Tech Capitalism: Europe's Approach to Innovation and Regulation in a Global Context 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
• Changed for Good? Engaging with the New World of Work 11:00 am - 12:00 pm

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Global Essay Competition

Compete in our Global Essay Competition and qualify for participation as a Leader of Tomorrow in the world’s premier opportunity for cross-generational debates: The St. Gallen Symposium.

Meet 300 of society’s brightest young minds. Present and debate your ideas with 600 senior leaders. Be inspired by some of the world’s most impressive speakers. Gain a unique and new perspective on this year’s topic. Become a member of a unique global community. Participate in the symposium with us. Win prize money of CHF 20,000 split amongst the three winners.

Topic Question

Striving for more or thriving with less – what pressing scarcity do you see, and how do you suggest to tackle it.

Scarcity generally refers to a situation where human needs exceed available resources . This year’s Global Essay Competition invites young leaders worldwide to focus on a specific contemporary or future challenge related to scarcity and propose an innovative way to address it.

Be creative in thinking about proposed solutions: do we need to strive for more and find ways to boost the availability of the resource in question? Or does it focus on ways to thrive with less and thus rethink our needs and demand?

Be free in choosing which scarce resource you focus on: examples include – but are NOT limited to – human labour, capital, natural resources, or intangibles like time, creativity, or care. Be bold and precise in describing a contemporary or future challenge of scarcity and the specific kind of resources you focus on, and offer a concrete and actionable idea of how we should confront it.

Registration window for the GEC for the 53rd St. Gallen Symposium is closed.

If problems occur during registration, please clear your cached images and files in your browsing history or consider using the browser Google Chrome. If you still cannot apply, use the following  link. For any unanswered questions please contact us via e-mail at  [email protected]

Prerequisites

Qualify with an excellent essay.

We expect a professional, creative and thought-provoking essay. Be bold, unconventional, and distinctive on the competition question.

For your contribution to be valid, the following criteria must be met

Check your eligibility and prepare documents, to be eligible, you must fulfill all of the following criteria:.

• Enrolled in a graduate or postgraduate programme (master level or higher) in any field of study at a regular university
• Born in 1994 or later

Make sure you can provide the following documents:

• Copy of passport or other identification (in English for non-Roman languages)
• Confirmation of matriculation/enrolment from your university which proves your enrollment in a graduate/postgraduate level programme as of 1 February 2024 (download sample document  here )
• Your contribution file with no indication of your name in the file name, the file metadata or the file itself

Meet us and ask your questions!

Meet our student representatives to learn how you can qualify for a participation in the 53 rd St. Gallen Symposium. We will have physical presentations at your university again as well as regular webinars to answer your questions!

Accompanying a Leader of Tomorrow

General questions, who can compete for a participation as a leader of tomorrow at the st. gallen symposium.

Students enrolled at a regular university, who are matriculated in a graduate or postgraduate programme.

What is the St. Gallen Global Essay Competition?

The St. Gallen Global Essay Competition is a global student essay competition, offering students who study at graduate or postgraduate level around the world the opportunity to apply for participation at the St. Gallen Symposium.

What is the Knowledge Pool?

The Knowledge Pool is a group of Leaders of Tomorrow with a strong affiliation to topics of relevance to the St. Gallen Symposium. They show outstanding track records in the particular fields they work or study. They are hand-selected by the International Students’ Committee. It is not possible to apply for membership in the Knowledge Pool.

How much does it cost to participate? 

The participation in the symposium is free for all Leaders of Tomorrow. Moreover, expenses for travel, board and lodging are covered by the ISC. However, we recommend bringing a small amount of pocket money for your convenience.

Essay Competition

Who is eligible for the 54 th  st. gallen symposium.

Students enrolled at a regular university, who are matriculated in a graduate or postgraduate programme as of 1 February 2025, from any field of study, born in 1995 or later.

What is a “regular university”?

In the context of the Global Essay Competition, a regular university is defined as an institution of higher education that also conducts research and offers at least one PhD programme. Exceptions are possible and are granted on a case-by-case basis.

Can Bachelor students participate?

Unfortunately, students on bachelor level do not fulfil the eligibility criteria and therefore cannot enter the competition. There is no other way to apply for participation and we, therefore, encourage all students to join the competition once they pursue with their studies at a graduate level. You may, however, be eligible if the level of study in your current year is equivalent to international graduate level which must be confirmed in writing by your university.

Can teams participate?

Only individual submissions are allowed as we can only grant participation to one contender per contribution.

How long should the contribution be? 

The maximum amount of words is 2,100 (excluding bibliography or graph descriptions and the like). There is no minimum word count. Please make sure to state the exact word count in your document. Also keep in mind that you must not state your name in the contribution.

Do I have to quote my sources?

All sources must be quoted and all essays are scanned for plagiarism. You must refer each source to the respective text passage. Please note that plagiarism is a serious offense and that we reserve the right to take further steps in case of deliberate fraud. Self-plagiarism will also result in disqualification, as the work has to be written exclusively for the Global Essay Competition of the St. Gallen Symposium.

Can I have a look at previous Winner Essays?

Yes, you can find winner essays as well as other publications from the Global Essay Competition here .

What file formats are accepted?

Please make sure to hand in your essay in either a doc, docx or pdf format. The document must allow to copy the text easily (no document protections).

What documents do I need to submit?

In addition to your contribution, make sure to upload

• a copy of your passport (or any other official government ID but no driver’s license) to verify your age
• a confirmation of matriculation from your university confirming your graduate or postgraduate student status as of February 2023
• a short abstract (200–300 words) which can be entered in the registration form directly

in the applicable field of the registration form.

What happens after I submitted my application?

The ISC will verify your eligibility and check all submitted documents for completeness and readability. Due to the large amount of essays we receive, our response may take some time, so thank you for your patience. If the jury selects your essay in the top 100 , you qualify as a Leader of Tomorrow for an expenses-paid participation in the 52 nd St. Gallen Symposium (4-5 May 2023). The results will be announced via e-mail by mid-March 2023. The jury selects the three awardees based on the quality of the idea on paper. The award is endowed with a total prize money of CHF 20,000. In addition, there will be a chance for the very best competitors (including the awardees) to present their ideas on the big stage at the symposium. For this, the students will be asked to pitch their idea on video beforehand.

Who’s in the jury?

The Award Jury consists of leading executives, journalists and professors from all around the world. The Academic Jury is composed of young top academics from the University of St. Gallen and the ETH Zurich.

When will the results be announced?

The jury’s decision will be announced by mid-March at the latest.

Participation

How do the travel arrangements work.

The organizing committee will get in touch with you prior to the symposium to discuss your itinerary and to book your travel.

Can the organising committee help me get a visa?

All Leaders of Tomorrow are self-responsible to get a visa. However, we will inform the applicable Swiss embassy about the invitation and will provide you with the necessary documents. Should a problem arise anyway, we are happy to help. Expenses for visa application are borne by the Leaders of Tomorrow themselves.

Where am I accommodated during the symposium?

All Leaders of Tomorrow are accommodated at private student flats across the city. Please give us an early notice should you have any special requirements (e.g. female flatmates only).

What transport is provided?

We book flights or train tickets and provide shuttle service from and to the airport. Furthermore, all Leaders of Tomorrow receive a free ticket for the public transport in St. Gallen during the week of the symposium.

How much money do I need? 

We recommend bringing some pocket money (CHF 100–200) for your convenience. Please note that depending on your time of arrival and departure, some meals might not be covered.

Can disabled people participate as well? 

Yes, of course. Most of the symposium sites are wheelchair-accessible and we are more than happy to help where we can. Although our ability to provide personal assistance is very limited, we do our best to provide the necessary services.

Is there any touristic programme and do I have time for sightseeing?

During the symposium there will be no time for sightseeing. However, we may offer selected touristic programmes a day before or after the symposium. These days can, of course, also be used for individual sightseeing. Nearby sites include the old town of St. Gallen, the lake Constance and the mountain Säntis.

Can I extend my stay in Switzerland?

Yes, upon request we can move your return flight to a date of your choice. If the new flight is more expensive, we may ask you to cover the price difference. Please note that we are unable to provide any services such as accommodation or transportation after the end of the symposium week.

Can I bring a spouse?

Unfortunately, we cannot provide any services such as travel, room, board or symposium access to any additional person.

Past Winners & Essay Reviews

Out of approx. 1,000 annual contributions submitted by graduate and post-graduate students from all around the globe, the jury selects three winner essays every year. Meet our competition’s past winners and read their contributions.

2023 – A New Generational Contract

Elliot gunn, gaurav kamath, megan murphy, essay question:.

The best or worst legacy from previous generations: How to preserve or replace it?

A great deal of our lives is influenced by when we were born. As those currently alive, we have inherited the world which previous and older generations have built. We owe a great deal to the efforts of our forebears, but we also inherit problematic legacies.

2022 – Collaborative Advantage

Sophie lara neuber, anton meier, bryan kwang shing tan.

Collaborative Advantage: what should be written into a new intergenerational contract?

 The idea of a “generational contract” embodies the principles that younger and older generations rely on each other to provide mutual support across different stages of their lives. Inclusive education systems, sustainable welfare states and meaningful environmental action are some of many challenges requiring a cross-generational collaborative effort. Yet, with the climate crisis, rapid technological change and societal aging in many countries, the generational contract and notions of intergenerational fairness have been challenged. Members of the younger generation are raising their voices as they reflect on how their futures are being compromised by current decision-makers.

 What’s your specific and actionable idea that should be written into a new generational contract? Choose an area where you see evidence that intergenerational fairness is – or, going forward, will be – challenged and where the generational contract needs to be rewritten. Potential areas include, but are not limited to, business strategy and the economy, inclusive governance and education, the welfare state and health care, environmental sustainability, or the world of work. Describe your problem and offer concrete and practical proposals how inter-generational fairness can be restored or reinvented. Explain your idea’s impact for the future.

2021 – Trust Matters

Janz irvin chiang.

1st place – Peking University

Joan  Nyangena

2nd place – York University

Karl Michael Braun

3rd place – Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

A Matter of Trust: How Can Trust be Repaired When It’s Lost?

In recent years, we have seen many reports about “trust crises” in the realms of politics, health, business, technology, science, and media. Political and corporate scandals, mass protests, and deteriorating trust indicators in global perception surveys support this diagnosis. As a result, senior leaders in many of these sectors publicly aspire to “rebuild trust” in their decisions, products, or institutions. What would be your advice to them?

Choose an area in one of the above-mentioned sectors where you see evidence that citizens’, consumers’, regulators’, employees’ or other stakeholders’ trust has been lost. Describe your example of an apparent loss of trust; offer concrete and practical proposals on repairing damaged trust. Describe your idea’s impact for the future.

2020 – Freedom Revisited

Symposium  postponed.

As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the final review and communication of the results of the contributions to the Global Essay Competition was stopped prematurely.

Freedom Revisited: Which aspects of freedom need to be defended, or recalibrated, to meet the challenges of our time?

Domestically and on the international stage, values of individual, economic, and political freedom are subject to critical inquiry or outright attack. Diverse phenomena such as populism, global power shifts, climate change, the digital revolution, and global migration call for a reflection on the value of freedom for the way we live, do business, and organize politically in the years ahead. While some call for a defence of established freedoms, others call for recalibration of our concept of freedom, or the balance we strike between freedom and other values, such as equality, sustainability, and security. Where do you stand in this debate? Choose one of the following positions as you develop your essay:

In defence of freedom: Choose an area in the realm of business, economics, politics, or civil society where current concepts of freedom are under pressure and where they need to be defended. Describe the problem and offer a concrete and practical proposition of how established concepts of freedom should – and can be – defended. Describe its impact for the future.

In defence of recalibrating freedom: Choose an area in the realms of business, economics, politics or civil society where current concepts of freedom are unsuitable for the challenges we face and where they need to be recalibrated. Describe the problem and offer a concrete and practical proposition of how established concepts of freedom should and can be recalibrated. Describe its impact for the future.

2019 – Capital for Purpose

Reuben muhindi wambui (ke).

1st place – The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

Natalie Hei Tung Lau (HK)

2nd place – University of Pennsylvania

Toan Do (VN)

3rd place – Yale University

Is it as good as it gets? – What approach would you suggest to change the current purpose of capital?

Political volatility, environmental issues, precarious labour markets, technological monopolies, managerial and investment short-termism are only a few challenges we face. The time has come to counter excessive short-termism and start doing business as unusual. Think about the status quo and its implications. What would be an idea to change it? Develop projects or actions you would trust in to bring new and expanded purposes to capital and aim for a long-term positive impact. In your essay you should consider how the use of capital (financial, human, social,…) can solve complex challenges and address substantial changes, be it by individuals, civil society, businesses or governments. Your idea must inspire leaders worldwide to take on responsibility and put it into practice. Be bold and develop a truly impactful concept to win our prestigious award.

2009 – 2018

2018  – beyond the end of work, nat ware (au).

1st place – University of Oxford

Janis Goldschmidt (DE)

João abreu (br).

3rd place – Harvard University

Robots are coming for your job. How do you augment yourself to stay economically relevant?

Author Yuval Noah Harari claims that the rapid progress of artificial intelligence technology will render the human species economically useless within decades. Imagine a world in which humans fight back, harnessing AI and other technologies to stay economically indispensable – and, ultimately, competitive against the computers. Describe the job you aspire to in the future, how it will potentially be influenced by AI, and how you would augment yourself technologically if necessary to prevail in your chosen career.

2017  – The dilemma of disruption

1st Place – University of Oxford

Benjamin Hofmann (DE)

2nd Place – University of St. Gallen

Sigin Ojulu (SS)

3rd Place – University of Southern California

Breaking the status quo – What’s YOUR disruptive idea?

The notion of disruption captures today’s innovation zeitgeist. Nowadays, it seems everyone claims to be a disruptor – particularly young people with an entrepreneurial mindset. Let’s think beyond disruptive innovation in management and look at disruption more generally as something that breaks the status quo – be it in business, politics, science, or society. Pick the one of these four fields you are most passionate about, identify a problem of greater magnitude and come up with a disruptive idea to solve it. Your idea must aspire to inspire top-notch leaders worldwide. Do not free ride on the buzzword “disruption” but rather be bold and develop a truly novel and radical concept to win our prestigious award.

2016  – Growth – the good, the bad, and the ugly

Schima labitsch (at).

1st place – Fordham University

Alexandra Ettlin (CH)

2nd place – University of St.Gallen

Colin Miller (US)

3rd place – New York University

What are alternatives to economic growth?

2015  – Proudly Small

Laya maheshwari (in).

1st place – London School of Economic

Leon Schreiber (ZA)

2nd place – Freie Universität Berlin

Katharina Schramm (DE)

3rd place – University of St.Gallen

Essay Questions:

• What is the next small BIG thing?

Think about unconventional ideas, undiscovered trends or peripheral signals that may turn into ground-breaking changes for societies. Present one idea which is not on the radar of current leaders yet but will change the game in business, politics or civil society – the best ones will be put to the test by the global audience of the St. Gallen Symposium.

• Collaborative Small State Initiative

Although small states lead the global rankings in international benchmark studies on competitiveness, innovation and wealth, they are often politically marginalised. Explore a common agenda for small and prosperous countries and identify one joint project that would increase the relevance of small states on the global stage. Go beyond politics and diplomacy by also including economic and civil players.

• Elites: small but superior groups rule the world – at what price?

Human history shows that the world has been ruled by tiny but superior groups of people. It is the elites who have been controlling societies and the allocation of resources. Given the rise of inequality, a devastating level of famine that still exists, ubiquitous corrupt systems of government, limited access to education for the underprivileged, to name just a few of the world’s greatest problems, elites are challenged to redefine their roles and agenda settings. Share your thoughts on how elites are supposed to emerge and transform in the 21st century.

2014  – The Clash of Generations

Ashwinikumar singh (in).

1st place – University of Mumbai

Martin Seneviratne (AU)

2nd place – University of Sydney

Set Ying Ting (MY)

3rd place – National University of Singapore

• Balancing Generational Claims

The presumption of an altruistic relation between generations and its positive effect on the economic well-being of societies is illusionary. Welfare states have widened fiscal gaps to an irreparable extent for the next generations. When aspiring to a sustainable welfare system, how should intergenerational claims balance without having to rely on selflessness?

• A Double-Edged Legacy

Let’s be frank: The generational contract has failed everywhere – but for different reasons. Exuberant public debts, zooming healthcare costs, unequal distribution of wealth, loss of ethical and moral anchors, loss of trust in existing institutions: each state is facing a unique set of problems. Briefly describe the situation in your country and propose a generational contract defining mutual responsibilities on an economic and social level.

• A Prospect for the Young

Highly educated and ambitious, yet unemployed. A whole generation of young is entering the labour market with little prospect of success. The implications go way beyond individual tragedies as economies with lasting high levels of youth unemployment risk social instability. Present new solutions on how we can overcome this crisis.

• Business between Generations

Slogans like “rent is the new own” or Botsmann and Rogers’s “what’s mine is yours” (HarperBusiness, 2010) mark the trend of shared economy. Although not a new economic phenomenon per se, particularly the Millennials are embracing this attitude towards doing business where they value access over ownership. The trend is gaining global mainstream acceptance which is resulting in a lasting impact on economic performance. Discuss the future of shared economy, its overall implications and the dynamics between supply and demand.

2013 – Rewarding Courage

Kilian semmelmann (de).

1st place – Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Dragov Radoslav (BG)

2nd place – Rotterdam School of Management

Bree Romuld (AU)

3rd place – University of St.Gallen (HSG)

The competitors must choose from one of four competition questions, which refer to the four topic clusters “Putting incentives right”, “Coping with institutions”, “Against the current – courageous people” and “Management of excellence”

• Putting incentives right

How come that both in the corporate world and in politics, responsible courage (e.g. whistleblowing, courage to disagree with current paradigms, etc.) is hardly ever rewarded? Where the big decisions for the future are taken, anxiety, conformity and despondence prevail. How can this be changed?

• Coping with institutions

Institutions of all kinds shape our behaviour – be it economic, political or social behaviour. How should institutions be designed in order to foster a sustainable economic and social development?

• Against the current – courageous people

Observers lament that younger generations, as individualistic as they are, tend to settle for a highly streamlined social and economic world that does not ask for big decisions or unconventional thinking. Please share your opinion on this observation and explain why you agree or disagree. Please use examples that support your arguments.

• Management of excellence

New insights can only flourish within a culture of dialogue in different opinions. No assumptions should be taken for granted nor should there be any unquestioned truth. However, most people (decision makers, managers, students, etc.) often fail to deal constructively with conflicting opinions. How can companies encourage their employees to build a healthy attitude towards unconventional thinking and acting?

2012 – Facing Risk

Rodrigues caren (in).

1st place – St. Joseph’s Institute of Management

Jennifer Miksch (DE)

2nd place – Geneva Graduate Institute

Jelena Petrovic (SR)

3rd place – King’s College London

Detecting Risks

• The methodological tools that allow early detection of what will shape future trends are pivotal. While risks are emerging faster, these tools still need fostered advancement. What is the role of scenario planning and forecasting methods and who is or should be responsible for these aspects in the organisation? How should the detection of risks be addressed in an increasingly complex and interconnected global landscape?

Risk Aversion

• In wealthy societies, most people tend to suppress risk taking. Given this increasing trend of risk aversion in saturated societies, what are the long term consequences for economy and society? What are the long term consequences of a high level of risk aversion?

Emerging Risks

• There are tremendous risks facing the global community and many people have not yet become aware of their potential consequences (e.g. public debt burden). What are the societal, economic and/or political risks your generation of decision makers will be facing in the future? How could you convert these risks into opportunities?

Managing Risk

• There is often a disconnect between taking risks and bearing the burden of the consequences of doing so (e.g. risk taking in investment banking). Who should bear the consequences of negligent risk taking and why? How can healthy risk taking be fostered in wealthy societies?

2011 – Just Power

Marcelo ber (ar).

1st place – New York University

Dhru Kanan Amal (IN)

2nd place – London School of Economics

Maria de los Angeles Lasa (AR)

3rd place – Università di Camerino

• Justice and Power
• Rethinking Leadership
• Public Goods and Values

We asked you to contribute visions and ideas to the theme “Just Power” – Power in the sense of its use in various areas of politics and economics. We expected a professional work which could be an essay, a scenario, a project report or proposal, a multi- media presentation or an entrepreneurial concept. It should be constructive, provocative or instructive, inspiring thoughts and actions as well as introucing new approaches and unconventional ideas. Within the framework of the theme you may choose between three subtopics for your contribution.

2010 – Entrepreneurs – Agents of Change

Ainur begim (kz).

1st place – University of Oslo

James Clear (USA)

Christoph birkholz (de).

• What makes an entrepreneur an “agent of change”?
• Changing of the guard: Who are the new entrepreneurs?
• Corporate entrepreneurship within large companies: a concept for the future or a mere pie in the sky?
• Entrepreneurship between environmental risks and opportunities: What does it take to succeed?

2009 – Revival of Political and Economic Boundaries

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“Partaking in the competition was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Not only was I able to come to St. Gallen and meet incredible young entrepreneurs and leaders who I’m still in contact with, but it provided me the opportunity to develop and share ideas with key decision-makers. The main idea I submitted was for a new way to finance retraining and healthcare at no cost to individuals or governments. Given the COVID- 19 pandemic, this idea is needed now more than ever, so I’m currently implementing the idea through a new organization I’ve established called FORTE ( Financing Of Return To Employment ).” NAT WARE , Founder & CEO of FORTE, Leader of Tomorrow at the 47th and 48th St. Gallen Symposium

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Sponsoring Institution:  The Harvard Crimson and Crimson Education

Type: Essay Contest

Eligibility: 13 -18 year olds (from anywhere) enrolled in a secondary institution

Application Deadline:  Mid February

Highlight:  Are you a current high school student who’s passionate about writing and wants to get their work evaluated by The Harvard Crimson? Then try your hand at participating in The Harvard Crimson Global Essay Contest ! This essay contest encourages high school students (13-18) from all around the globe to compete for various opportunities and prizes that could change their writing career forever. Since this essay contest is completely virtual , there are practically zero barriers stopping you from entering this essay contest. You might be wondering what type of prompts you need to write about in The Harvard Crimson’s essay contest. Well, every year, there are two different prompt tracks following either a creative or persuasive theme. There are typically 10 different prompts for the contestants to write about. The prizes for this essay contest are the same for both creative and persuasive tracks. The first, second, and third place winners receive an internship with The Harvard Crimson, a recommendation letter, and Harvard merchandise. In addition they will receive $1000, $750, and $500 in cash and Crimson Mentorship credit. To qualify for The English Learner prize of $100 and Harvard “merch”, you cannot come from an English speaking family, or have social interactions that are primarily in English, or have completed any period of schooling where English is the primary language. Additional awards include the 50 regional awards distributed across 5 global regions which feature a $25 Amazon gift card and a Regional Finalist Certificate. Just and fyi: you are able to submit previously written essays to this essay contest given that they’re under 500 words long and were written by you. There are multiple webinars and exclusive workshops presented by The Harvard Crimson to help you get started…so, perks galore!!! With all that this global essay contest offers… for free…it’s hard to resist applying to Harvard!

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The Harvard Crimson Global Essay Competition 2022

La Le Quynh Anh , Reporter | November 26, 2021

Are you looking for another achievement to list in your resume? Are you an avid writer who is looking for an opportunity to showcase your writing skills? Then, Crimson Global Academy has just the right event for you! 

Recently, there was an email sent to every student at CGA, informing about the Harvard Crimson Global Essay Competition (HCGEC) 2022. With the partnership between CGA and the Harvard Crimson, one of the most prestigious international writing competitions for students aged 13 to 18 was created. It not only provides students with a fair chance to compete with other students around the world but also to develop their critical thinking. 

Winning this competition means that you will win a Harvard Crimson Internship along with a Letter of Recommendation. Not to mention, you will be recognized as a top writer as your essay will be published on the official competition’s website, which is endorsed by the Harvard Crimson. You will also get access to exclusive first-class education and career-driven webinars by world professionals in a number of fields. There are also additional prices that could be worth up to as much as US $5000 in cash and another US $5000 in Crimson mentorship credit. 

You will have 2 different categories to choose from: creative and persuasive. The final date to submit your essay for the regional round is on January 30th, 2022. The most excellent 5 participants from each category will then compete in the global finals where they will further develop their essays and compete with each other for the grand prizes that were mentioned above. 

You are probably thinking that you absolutely cannot afford to miss this opportunity, right? Sign up for it right now and get a 50% off of the registration fee, having only to pay US $7.50. Please note that the final deadline for an early bird is on December 15th, 2021. Following that, from December 16th to January 19th, the regular registration fee will cost you US 15$. 

You can sign up for the competition through this link . Attached are also the HCGEC 2022 invitation handbook and a one-page guide that includes everything you need to know about the competition. Welp, see you at the competition then! 

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Karin Rezkalla • Nov 26, 2021 at 2:28 pm

Email me at: [email protected] for a discount code that will grant you a further 30% off, bringing the cost down to US$5!!!

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From the Anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab Bias Task Force: Many at Harvard Feel Ignored

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Early this year, interim President Alan M. Garber ’76 announced the formation of the Presidential Task Force on Combating Anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab Bias, which was charged with understanding how hate and bias have impacted life on campus for Muslim and Arab members of the Harvard community.

We are the co-chairs of that task force, and we write to share what we’ve found from our work so far — and where we’ll go from here.

We began meeting in February and launched a series of listening sessions in April — to date we have had 45 sessions with more than 400 students, faculty, and staff across Cambridge and Longwood. We also met with several affinity groups to ensure that a wide range of vital perspectives were heard.

Our goal was to learn more about what Harvard community members have experienced and form recommendations for what the University can do about it. We learned early on that though the name and charge of our Task Force refer to Muslim and Arabs, we had to focus particularly on Palestinian members of our community and those with diverse backgrounds who identify as pro-Palestinian, both of which groups have experienced a great deal of trauma and pain.

What we heard was heart-breaking. Palestinian community members spoke of the tragic loss of many family members and loved ones in Gaza. Muslims, Palestinians, Arab Christians, and other individuals of Arab descent reported compounding feelings of uncertainty, abandonment, threat, mistrust, and fear.

We heard of incidents of bias, including of Muslim women in hijab and pro-Palestinian students wearing keffiyehs being verbally harassed and called “terrorists” by other Harvard affiliates. People of color from other groups and identities — often Black and South Asian students – shared experiences of racism and hatred because they were allies, or because they were misidentified as Arab, Muslim, or Palestinian.

This pain and anxiety, we found, extends to the administration’s actions too.

Students reported getting doxxed by outsiders and insiders alike with little administrative response. Palestinians spoke about feeling their identity ignored and erased by campus-wide messages that did not acknowledge them. Many felt that University responses to campus protests amounted to a “Palestine exception” to free speech. Others raised concerns that policies have been applied unevenly to Muslims, Arabs, and pro-Palestinian students versus other groups.

Many students and faculty, including Jewish allies, said they continue to fear negative consequences when speaking out publicly on issues they care about such as human rights and Harvard’s engagements and investments in the Middle East. The threat of harassment, physical violence, or professional consequences force these members of the Harvard community to choose between free expression and personal well-being.

Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias at American universities are not new developments. They became particularly significant after 9/11 and its lasting effects on U.S. foreign policy and domestic politics. Students also noted that Harvard lacked faculty and course offerings dedicated to Palestinian studies and the complexities of the Israel-Palestine conflict — a reality that perpetuates a lack of understanding on campus about the crisis happening in Gaza today.

To complement these findings from the listening sessions, we have recently launched a Harvard-wide survey in collaboration with the Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism. We encourage all students, staff, and faculty to take it.

Although many community members are feeling harm, disappointment and isolation, there is also a deep desire for positive change. Despite all they have experienced, members of our various communities came forward with suggestions for creating a better Harvard — one that pays attention to the voices and views of all students, faculty, and staff.

As challenging as the situation is, we remain committed to starting the healing process and fostering a more inclusive Harvard. The Presidential Task Force on Combating Anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab Bias will continue to engage with its communities and hopes to deliver preliminary recommendations to the President shortly and further recommendations and a public report in the fall.

We are also coordinating with our counterparts on the Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism to share what we have heard, look for similar trends, and demonstrate our shared commitment to create bridges of understanding between our work. While we will work together to identify opportunities to increase dialogue across differences, we will also recognize the diversity of lived experiences that exists between groups at Harvard.

Too many students have felt invisible at Harvard in recent months. Our task force is committed to making visible and improving the experiences of Arabs, Muslims, Palestinians, and pro-Palestinian allies within our community.

Ali S. Asani is the Murray A. Albertson Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures. Wafaie W. Fawzi is the Richard Saltonstall Professor of Population Sciences and Professor of Nutrition, Epidemiology, and Global Health. Asim Ijaz Khwaja is Professor of International Finance and Development at the Harvard Kennedy School. They are co-chairs of the Presidential Task Force on Combating Anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab Bias.

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In Photos: Harvard’s 373rd Commencement Exercises

Thousands of graduates, Harvard faculty, friends, and family crowded into Harvard Yard on Thursday for the University’s 373rd Commencement Exercises. But the usual pomp and circumstance of the ceremony were overshadowed by mass discontent over the decision to bar 13 pro-Palestine College student protesters from graduating. Crimson multimedia staff were there to document the ceremony and the walkout of more than 1,000 attendees in protest.

Before 8 a.m., students from Harvard’s 12 graduate schools and the College process through the Yard. Above, students in Lowell House march through the Yard behind two bagpipe players and a drummer.

Graduating students walk by the John Harvard statue in front of University Hall and tip their caps. The University conferred 7,782 degrees to students at the College and its 12 graduate and professional schools on Thursday.

Graduating seniors gather between Phillips Brooks House and Holden Chapel for Senior Valediction at 9 a.m. Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana and outgoing Eliot House Faculty Dean Stephanie Paulsell addressed the seniors before they proceeded to Tercentenary Theatre for the ceremony.

Isabella E. Peña ’24 sings the national anthem at the start of the Commencement ceremony.

Harvard’s Muslim chaplain Khalil Abdur-Rashid Hillel and campus Rabbi Getzel Davis give an opening blessing, marking the first time in Harvard’s history that the University has had two chaplains of different religions as the chaplains of the day.

Interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 begins his address to seniors by acknowledging that protesters may try to disrupt the graduation ceremony to protest Israel’s war in Gaza. Garber then held a minute of silence for those experiencing “moments of fear, dread, grief and anguish” in the world.

Blake Alexander Lopez ’24 delivered the Latin Salutatory — an address entirely in Latin — at the start of the ceremony. His address was titled “Distantia Propinquior” or “A Nearer Distance.”

Shruthi Kumar ’24 delivered the Senior English Address. She veered off-script from her speech, which was titled “The Power of Not Knowing,” to criticize the University for denying 13 graduating seniors their diplomas after they faced disciplinary charges over their participation in the pro-Palestine Harvard Yard encampment.

Asmer A. Safi ’23-’24 (left), one of the students denied their degree, stands and raises his fist after Kumar’s speech. Kumar received a standing ovation from the crowd, including members of the faculty.

Harvard Law School graduate Robert L. Clinton IV delivered the final student speech: the Graduate English Address. Titled “On Being Good,” Clinton’s speech addressed the seven months of intense scrutiny on Harvard’s campus, acknowledging the 13 seniors denied diplomas and calling on attendees to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

Harvard Law School graduate Lea H. Kayali waves a keffiyeh during Clinton’s speech. Shortly afterward, Kayali participated in a walkout of more than 1,000 students, faculty, and commencement attendees who then marched to Epworth Church to attend the “People’s Commencement,” at which Kayali delivered the opening address .

Demonstrators at the Commencement ceremony roll up a more than 140-yard-long canvas listing the names of Palestinians killed in the violence in Gaza.

Honorary Harvard degrees were bestowed on six recipients. From left to right: conductor Gustavo A. Dudamel Ramírez; Jeannie Chin Hansen, former CEO of the American Geriatrics Society; Sylvester James Gates Jr., a physics professor at the University of Maryland; and Joy Harjo-Sapulpa, a chancellor of the American Academy of Poets and former U.S. Poet Laureate. Former University President Lawrence S. Bacow and Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist Maria A. Ressa also received honorary degrees.

Maria Ressa addressed the Class of 2024 as the principal speaker at the Commencement ceremony. In her address to the Class of 2024, Ressa discussed her experience facing repression for her investigative journalism and the importance of searching for truth in a world filled with increasing disinformation.

Following Shruthi and Clinton’s speeches before her, Ressa addressed the campus protests which she said “are testing everyone in America.”

“Protests are healthy; they shouldn’t be violent. Protests give voice; they shouldn’t be silenced,” she said, to applause.

Middlesex County Sheriff Peter J. Koutoujian brought the ceremony to a close shortly before noon, pounding his staff three times to the cheers of attendees.

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A Year of Speech About Speech

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You’ve probably seen — in think pieces and congressional hearings, social media posts and interviews — that Harvard has a free speech problem.

On one hand, this panic is a good thing. Free speech and open inquiry are the heart of a healthy university, and they face real, serious problems at Harvard that will not be solved without buy-in from faculty and students.

On the other, buy-in alone doesn’t suffice. When Harvard’s defenders of free speech advocate for conceptions of free speech that are half-formed or inconsistent, they waste the will to make progress on prescriptions unfit to solve the problem — or that make it worse.

It was the crises of the past year that made free speech a hot topic, laying bare long-standing tensions over its place at Harvard.

In the last year, administrators responded to an international geopolitical crisis with statements that satisfied nobody; a former University president delivered testimony to a Congress intent on her public humiliation; and pro-Palestinian protesters — accused of antisemitism and subjected to harsh online harassment — tested the limits of Harvard’s time, place, and manner restrictions on campus demonstrations.

Throughout this semester and last we have gathered as an Editorial Board to make sense of these controversies in real time, to debate and disagree openly about issues of fundamental importance to many of us.

Since Oct. 7, few on each side of the issue have engaged in discussion with those on the other. On our Board, which counts among its number some of Harvard’s most prominent pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel students, it happens three times a week.

We live the debates about free speech, academic freedom, and open discourse prosecuted in the pages of the New York Times, the feeds of social media, and the halls of Congress. Here’s what we’ve learned from a year defined by contests over free speech — and how what you’d typically read about it gets it wrong.

Institutional Neutrality, Now

Let’s start at the beginning, the first misstep that snowballed into the University’s leadership crisis.

On Oct. 7, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee penned a statement co-signed by 33 other student organizations holding Israel “entirely responsible” for the massacre.

Thus began the storm. Prominent Harvard affiliates like former University President Lawrence H. Summers and Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) condemned the PSC’s statement, launching a tidal wave of outrage and online harassment.

Maybe — just maybe — that could have been the end. Harvard’s response ensured it would not be.

Days after the massacre and the PSC statement, the University released the first of what would become a barrage of mealy-mouthed public pronouncements. For some they were too late; for others they were unnecessary. For some they were too forceful; for others, too message-tested. Statement after statement hit our inboxes leaving no one better off as a result.

The root of the problem isn’t the stance that the University staked out (though it had its flaws ) — it’s that Harvard had created the expectation that it would take an official position at all.

These statements didn’t make students safer. They didn’t quell campus tensions. They obviously didn’t advance a peaceful resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. So what are official University proclamations on social and political issues good for? We’ve realized the answer is next to nothing.

In fact, they do harm. As a matter of principle, it’s improper for institutions dedicated to open inquiry to declare an institutional orthodoxy on controversial issues; as a practical matter, it’s immensely destabilizing.

For years, this instability remained hidden. The University made statements about George Floyd’s murder, Jan. 6, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — all causes unlikely to occasion outrage on a considerably liberal campus.

With Oct. 7, the unsustainability of that approach became apparent. For the first time in recent memory, Harvard faced pressure to make statements on an issue with significant campus constituencies on either side. Yes, the University bungled the statements it did make, but it’s unlikely that any statement could have placated two groups with positions so incompatible.

Before the next divisive campus issue comes around, Harvard needs to end the expectation that it will make public statements that hit exactly the right note on social and political issues.

A commitment to institutional neutrality cannot, however, become an excuse for its conduct in areas where it can never be neutral. When it comes to the endowment, the choice to invest in fossil fuels or weapons manufacturers is just that — a choice, made on the basis of subjective, non-neutral judgments.

Harassment Goes Digital

Official statements and sanctions have loomed large in conversations about free speech at Harvard, but at least as often, the threat has come from personal, private action.

On Oct. 11, a truck adorned with a glowing billboard paraded the names and faces of students — our classmates — allegedly associated with organizations that co-signed the PSC statement, labeling them “Harvard’s leading antisemites.” Many of those students were harassed online. Others had the “doxxing truck” visit their hometown. Some received death threats.

While students entrusted to their care and cultivation endured some of the worst, most terrifying days of their life, several of Harvard’s most prominent faculty members piled on.

On Oct. 9, former University President Lawrence H. Summers released a string of posts on X blasting the student groups affiliated with the PSC statement and the University for failing to condemn it. Even after he disavowed the attacks on students in an Oct. 11 post, Summers continued, for weeks, to lambast the University for its failures to decisively reject antisemitism, feeding the outrage that was causing students such anguish.

For some, perhaps this met the standard for effective open inquiry. When one is faced with a disagreeable view, one should voice that disagreement. Speech meets counterspeech.

Maybe that model worked before the internet placed Harvard before the watchful eyes of the world, allowing local controversies to become global outrage. Maybe it still works, when an issue is unlikely to elicit such outrage.

But when Harvard is mired in controversy and internet-enabled bullying and harassment rage, it’s clear that publicly airing grievances throws gasoline on the fire, drawing outside criticism that intimidates would-be speakers and toxifies campus discourse.

High-profile affiliates — professors, in particular — must know better. When you take on the pastoral role of professor, caring for students and guiding them to be better is part of the job description.

Professors should treat objectionable speech as an opportunity to teach and learn. When they take to X instead, they don’t just inflict pain on their students — they waste a valuable opportunity to correct the half-baked ideas often contained in the speech they oppose. Instead, we should all seek opportunities to engage in ways that don’t invite outside agitators in: Send private letters, seek out in-person conversations, convene debates, teach-ins, and meetings.

A healthy speech environment involves counterspeech, but certain modes of counterspeech can weaken the University’s speech culture. By being more mindful of our online presence — and bringing speech offline wherever possible — we can engage in counterspeech without attracting outside agitators.

Half-Truths and Ad Hominems

If your only engagement with Harvard in the past year had been cable news reports and congressional press releases, you might be justified in believing that Harvard is a hotbed of deep seated antisemitism.

If you spent the last year living on campus, that claim is harder to take at face value.

Like all communities, Harvard has its share of problems. There’s no denying that hate has reared its ugly head on our campus this semester. The causes range from ignorance and thoughtlessness to a dearth of empathy, and it’s entirely possible that a handful of students here really are antisemitic.

But our campus climate should not be measured by its worst acts. The overwhelming majority of our classmates are not antisemitic, even if we take issue with the inflammatory and insensitive rhetoric they have at times employed. Likewise, the encampment was not especially disruptive or remotely dangerous, even if it may have involved objectionable conduct or speech.

This lesson generalizes beyond the pro-Palestinian protesters. In an environment where any claim about Harvard can go viral in a matter of minutes, we must be able to disagree without immediately resorting to ad hominem attacks that cast our fellow students in the worst light.

Those who seek to criticize the University itself should abide by a similar standard.

In recent months, many prominent Harvard affiliates have castigated the institution’s diversity, equity, and inclusion offices as a lead threat to free speech on campus.

That view rests on a fundamental misconception about the role of DEI: There is no DEI behemoth governing Harvard from the shadows. Harvard’s DEI offices mostly provide concrete services, organizing events and coordinating resources to support students facing difficulties related in some way to their identity.

Certainly, there is no truth to the narrative that these low-level administrators hand-picked former University President Claudine Gay — who got the job over hundreds of other candidates, including many talented people of color — as a “DEI hire.”

This is not to say that the critics don’t have a point. Many use the term DEI to denote a culture of sensitivity and censoriousness that does, in some measure, exist. But using the term carelessly does nobody a service, spreading misinformation about how Harvard operates while directing unearned ire at the DEI administrators working hard to do work valuable to many students.

The Future of Free Speech

The more it’s discussed, it feels, the less “free speech” means. Groups and individuals at Harvard and beyond deploy it for a host of purposes and with a host of intended meanings. In this cacophonous discourse, it can be hard to tell what’s real and what’s just noise.

Viewed together, though, the questions about free speech raised in the course of the last year offer an indication of how Harvard might proceed: by recommitting to collective responsibility for the speech environment that defines the teaching and learning on this campus.

We create the culture within which Harvard feels compelled to make statements on social and political issues; professors feel compelled to lambast their students to an audience of millions; and students on one side feel compelled to malign the character and intentions of the students on the other. No matter what policies change at Harvard, until we change that culture, free speech will remain in peril.

So listen closely to what fellow members of the University community say. Receive it with patience and kindness — in good faith. Consider where, when, and how to respond. And be cautious of giving faraway observers the opportunity to misconstrue what happens here.

Free speech challenges us. It demands we tolerate that which we hate, encounter that which we fear. But if this Editorial Board emerges from a year of arguing about free speech sure of anything, it’s this: Fickle as free speech may be, we can’t have a university any other way.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

Have a suggestion, question, or concern for The Crimson Editorial Board? Click here .

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What Do Students at Elite Colleges Really Want?

Many of Harvard’s Generation Z say “sellout” is not an insult.

Credit... Jeff Hinchee

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By Francesca Mari

• Published May 22, 2024 Updated May 24, 2024

The meme was an image of a head with “I need to get rich” slapped across it. “Freshmen after spending 0.02 seconds on campus,” read the caption, posted in 2023 to the anonymous messaging app Sidechat.

The campus in question was Harvard, where, at a wood-paneled dining hall last year, two juniors explained how to assess a fellow undergraduate’s earning potential. It’s easy, they said, as we ate mussels, beets and sautéed chard: You can tell by who’s getting a bulge bracket internship.

“What?” Benny Goldman, a then-28-year-old economics P.h.D. student and their residential tutor, was confused.

One of the students paused, surprised that he was unfamiliar with the term: A bulge bracket bank, like Goldman Sachs , JPMorgan Chase or Citi. The biggest, most prestigious global investment banks. A B.B., her friend explained. Not to be confused with M.B.B. , which stands for three of the most prestigious management consulting firms: McKinsey, Bain and Boston Consulting Group.

While the main image of elite campuses during this commencement season might be activists in kaffiyehs pitching tents on electric green lawns, most students on campus are focused not on protesting the war in Gaza, but on what will come after graduation.

Despite the popular image of this generation — that of Greta Thunberg and the Parkland activists — as one driven by idealism, GenZ students at these schools appear to be strikingly corporate-minded. Even when they arrive at college wanting something very different, an increasing number of students at elite universities seek the imprimatur of employment by a powerful firm and “making a bag” (slang for a sack of money) as quickly as possible.

Elite universities have always been major feeders into finance and consulting, and students have always wanted to make money. According to the annual American Freshman Survey , the biggest increase in students wanting to become “very well off financially” happened between the 1970s and 1980s, and it’s been creeping up since then.

But in the last five years, faculty and administrators say, the pull of these industries has become supercharged. In an age of astronomical housing costs, high tuition and inequality, students and their parents increasingly see college as a means to a lucrative job, more than a place to explore.

A ‘Herd Mentality’

At Harvard, a graduating senior, who passed on a full scholarship to another school, told me that he felt immense pressure to show his parents that their $400,000 investment in his Harvard education would allow him to get the sort of job where he could make a million dollars a year. Upon graduation, he will join the private equity firm Blackstone, where, he believes, he will learn and achieve more in six years than 30 years in a public-service-oriented organization.

Another student, from Uruguay, who spent his second summer in a row practicing case studies in preparation for management consulting internship interviews, told me that everyone arrived on campus hoping to change the world. But what they learn at Harvard, he said, is that actually doing anything meaningful is too hard. People give up on their dreams, he told me, and decide they might as well make money. Someone else told me it was common at parties to hear their peers say they just want to sell out.

“There’s definitely a herd mentality,” Joshua Parker, a 21-year-old Harvard junior from Oahu, said. “If you’re not doing finance or tech, it can feel like you’re doing something wrong.”

As a freshman, he planned to major in environmental engineering. As a sophomore, he switched to economics, joining five of his six roommates. One of those roommates told me that he hoped to run a hedge fund by the time he was in his 30s. Before that, he wanted to earn a good salary, which he defined as $500,000 a year.

According to a Harvard Crimson survey of Harvard Seniors, the share of 2024 graduates going into finance and consulting is 34 percent. (In 2022 and 2023 it exceeded 40 percent. The official Harvard Institutional Research survey yields lower percentages for those fields than the Crimson survey, because it includes students who aren’t entering the work force.)

These statistics approach the previous highs in 2007, after which the global financial crisis drove the share down to a recent low of 20 percent in 2009, from which it’s been regaining ground since.

Fifteen years ago, fewer students went into tech. Adding in that sector, the share of graduates starting what some students non-disparagingly refer to as “sellout jobs” is more than half. (It was a record-shattering 60 percent in 2022 and nearly 54 percent in 2023.)

“When people say ‘selling out,’ I mean, obviously, there’s some implicit judgment there,” said Aden Barton, a 23-year-old Harvard senior who wrote an opinion column for the student newspaper headlined, “How Harvard Careerism Killed the Classroom.”

“But it really is just almost a descriptive term at this point for people pursuing certain career paths,” he continued. “I’m not trying to denigrate anybody’s career path nor my own.” (He interned at a hedge fund last summer.)

David Halek, director of employer relations at Yale’s Office of Career Strategy, thinks students may use the term “sell out” because of the perceived certainty: “It’s the easy path to follow. It is well defined,” he said.

“It’s hard to conceptualize other things,” said Andy Wang, a social studies concentrator at Harvard who recently graduated.

Some students talk about turning to a different career later on, after they’ve made enough money. “Nowadays, English concentrators often say they’re going into finance or management consulting for a couple of years before writing their novel,” said James Wood, a Harvard professor of the practice of literary criticism.

And a surprising number of students explain their desire for a corporate job by drawing on the ethos of effective altruism : Whether they are conscious of the movement or not, they believe they can have greater impact by maximizing earnings to donate to a cause than working for that cause.

But once students board the prestige escalator and become accustomed to a certain salary, walking away can feel funny. Like, well, walking off an escalator.

Financial Pressures

The change is striking to those who have been in academia for years, and not just at Harvard.

Roger Woolsey, executive director of the career center at Union College, a private liberal arts college in Schenectady, N.Y, said he first noticed a change around 2015, with students who had been in high school during the Great Recession and who therefore prioritized financial security.

“The students saw what their parents went through, and the parents saw what happened to themselves,” he said. “You couple that with college tuition continuing to rise,” he continued, and students started looking for monetary payoffs right after graduation.

Sara Lazenby, an institutional policy analyst for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that might be why students and their parents were much more focused on professional outcomes than they used to be. “In the past few years,” she said, “I’ve seen a higher level of interest in this first-destination data” — stats on what jobs graduates are getting out of college.

“Twenty years ago, an ‘introduction to investment banking’ event was held at the undergraduate library at Harvard,” said Howard Gardner, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “Forty students showed up, all men, and when asked to define ‘investment banking,’ none raised their hands.”

Now, according to Goldman Sachs, the bank had six times as many applicants this year for summer internships as it did 10 years ago, and was 20 percent more selective for this summer’s class than it was last year. JPMorgan also saw a record number of undergraduate applications for internships and full-time positions this year.

The director of the Mignone Center for Career Success at Harvard, Manny Contomanolis, also chalked up the change, in part, to financial pressure. “Harvard is more diverse than ever before,” Mr. Contomanolis said, with nearly one in five students eligible for a low-income Pell Grant . Those students, he said, weigh whether to, for instance, “take a job back in my border town community in Texas and make a big impact in a kind of public service sense” or get a job with “a salary that would be life changing for my family.”

However, according to The Harvard Crimson’s senior survey, as Mr. Barton noted in his opinion column, “The aggregate rate of ‘selling out’ is about the same — around 60 percent — for all income brackets.” The main distinction is that students from low-income families are comparatively more likely to go into technology than finance.

In other words, there is something additional at play, which Mr. Barton argues has to do with the nature of prestige. “If you tell me you’re working at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey, that’s amazing , their eyes are going to light up,” Mr. Barton said. “If you tell somebody, ‘Oh, I took this random nonprofit job,’ or even a journalism job, even if you’re going to a huge name, it’s going to be a little bit of a question mark.”

Maibritt Henkel, a 21-year-old junior at Harvard, is an economics major with moral reservations about banking and consulting. Ms. Henkel sometimes worries that others might misread her decision not to go into those industries as evidence that she couldn’t hack it.

“Even if you don’t want to do it for the rest of your life, it’s seen kind of as the golden standard of a smart, hardworking person,” she said.

Some students have also become skeptical about traditional avenues of social change, like government and nonprofits, which have attracted fewer Harvard students since the pandemic, according to the Harvard Office of Institutional Research.

Matine Khalighi, 22, founded a nonprofit to award scholarships to homeless youth when he was in eighth grade. When he began studying economics at Harvard, his nonprofit, EEqual, was granting 50 scholarships a year. But some of the corporations that funded EEqual were contributing to inequality that created homelessness, he said. Philanthropy wasn’t the solution for systemic change, he decided. Instead, he turned to finance, with the idea that the sector could marshal capital quickly for social impact.

Employers encourage this way of thinking. “We often talk about the fact that we work with some of the biggest emitters on the planet because we believe that’s how we actually affect climate change,” said Blair Ciesil, the global leader of talent attraction at McKinsey.

The Recruitment Ratchet

Princeton’s senior survey results are nearly identical to The Crimson’s Senior Survey: about 38 percent of 2023 graduates who were employed took jobs in finance and consulting; adding tech and engineering, the rate is close to 60 percent, compared with 53 percent in 2016, the earliest year for which the data is available.

This isn’t solely an Ivy League phenomenon. Schools slice their data differently, but at many colleges, a large percentage of students pursue these fields. At Amherst , in 2022, 32 percent of employed undergrads went into finance and consulting, and 11 percent went into internet and software, for a total of about 43 percent. Between 2017 and 2019, the University of California, Los Angeles, sent about 21 percent of employed students into engineering and computer science, 9 percent into consulting and nearly 10 percent into finance, for a total of roughly 40 percent

Part of that has to do with recruitment; the most prestigious banks and consulting firms do so only at certain colleges, and they have intensified their presence on those campuses in recent years. Over the last five years or so, “the idea of thinking about your professional path has moved much earlier in the undergraduate experience,” Ms. Ciesil said. She said the banks first began talking to students earlier, and it was the entrance of Big Tech onto the scene, asking for junior summer applications by the end of sophomore year, that accelerated recruitment timelines.

“At first, we tried to fight back by saying, ‘No, no, no, no, no, sophomores aren’t ready, and what does a sophomore know about financial modeling?’” said Mr. Woolsey at Union College. But, he added, schools “don’t want to push back too much, because then you’re going to lose revenue,” since firms often pay to recruit on campus.

The Effective Altruist Influence

The marker that really distinguishes Gen Z is how pessimistic its members are, and how much they feel like life is beyond their control, according to Jean Twenge, a psychologist who analyzed data from national surveys of high school students and first-year college students in her book “Generations.”

Money, of course, helps give people a sense of control. And because of income inequality, “there’s this idea that you either make it or you don’t, so you better make it,” Ms. Twenge said.

Mihir Desai, a professor at Harvard’s business and law schools, wrote a 2017 essay in The Crimson titled “ The Trouble With Optionality ,” arguing that students who habitually pursue the security of prestigious employment foreclose the risk-taking and longer-range thinking necessary for more unusual or idealistic achievements. Mr. Desai believes that’s often because they are responding to the bigger picture, like threats to workers from artificial intelligence, and political and financial upheaval.

In recent years, he’s observed two trends among students pursuing wealth. There’s “the option-buyer,” the student who takes a job in finance or consulting to buy more time or to keep options open. Then there’s what he calls “the lottery ticket buyer,” the students who go all-in on a risky venture, like a start-up or new technology, hoping to make a windfall.

“They know people who bought Bitcoin at $2,000. They know people who bought Tesla at $20,” he said.

Some faculty see the influence of effective altruism among this generation: In the last five years, Roosevelt Montás, a senior lecturer at Columbia University and the former director of its Center for the Core Curriculum, has noticed a new trend when he asks students in his American Political Thought classes to consider their future.

“Almost every discussion, someone will come in and say, ‘Well, I can go and make a lot of money and do more good with that money than I could by doing some kind of charitable or service profession,’” Mr. Montás said. “It’s there constantly — a way of justifying a career that is organized around making money.”

Mr. Desai said all of this logic goes, “‘Make the bag so you can do good in the world, make the bag so you can go into retirement, make the bag so you can then go do what you really want to do.’”

But this “really underestimates how important work is to people’s lives,” he said. “What it gets wrong is, you spend 15 years at the hedge fund, you’re going to be a different person. You don’t just go work and make a lot of money, you go work and you become a different person.”

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Two yale students named 2024 soros fellows.

Kristine Guillaume and Ananya Agustin Malhotra

Kristine Guillaume, a Ph.D. student in Yale’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Ananya Agustin Malhotra, who will pursue her J.D. at Yale Law School are among 30 individuals selected as 2024 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, a merit-based program that supports graduate study for immigrants or children of immigrants.

Selected from 2,323 applicants, the 2024 Soros fellows are chosen for their achievements and their potential to make meaningful contributions to the United States across fields of study. They each will receive up to $90,000 in funding to support their graduate studies at institutions across the country.

Since it was founded 26 years ago, the fellowship program has provided more than $80 million in funding, and recipients have studied a range of fields from medicine and the arts to law and business. View the full list of 2024 fellows .

Kristine Guillaume , the daughter of Haitian and Chinese immigrants, was raised in Queens, New York, where her parents instilled in her the values of education and engaging meaningfully with communities near and far. Growing up, she developed a passion for storytelling — particularly the stories of marginalized people in society — that has motivated her paths in the fields of academia and journalism.

She graduated from Harvard College in 2020 with a degree in history and literature and African American Studies. As a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, she pursued independent research on the rise of mass incarceration in the United States through the study of Black prison writing. Her undergraduate honors thesis focused on the prison writings of Angela Davis and George Jackson, which examined how their respective periods of incarceration shaped their visions of Black liberation in the 1970s. At Harvard, she was a reporter for The Harvard Crimson and the paper’s first Black woman president. She has also interned at The Atlantic and CBS Evening News.

Guillaume continued her studies in African American literature and history at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. She completed a master’s degree in English and American Studies (2021) and another in intellectual history (2022). Her postgraduate work, together with her undergraduate research, laid the foundation for research she is currently pursuing at Yale, where she is doing a Ph.D. in African American Studies and English.

Her research interests are in 20 th and 21 st century African American literature with a focus on Black prison writing, Black feminist theory, and print culture. Her research is grounded in questions about how prison writing across literary forms and genres might provide insight into how to remake conceptions of freedom, justice, and belonging. In addition, her interests in Black print culture and background as a journalist have informed how her research aims to examine the material constraints around prison writing — namely surveillance, censorship, and access to publishing — especially through a consideration of prison newspapers and periodicals. At Yale, Guillaume is also a research fellow for the Black Bibliography Project and volunteers with the Yale Prison Education Initiative.

Ananya Agustin Malhotra , whose parents came to the U.S. from the Philippines and India, and who was born and raised in a bi-cultural and interfaith household Georgia, says she is deeply motivated by her mother and father’s family histories to advocate for a more just and peaceful future United States foreign policy.

Her interests lie at the intersection of global history, international law, and peace and security issues. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University with a concentration in the School of Public and International Affairs. Her undergraduate thesis, based on oral histories with New Mexican Downwinders, explored the human legacies of the 1945 Trinity Test and the U.S. nuclear age. At Princeton, she served as president of the Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Resources, and Education (SHARE) Peer Program, where she was first introduced to survivor-centered advocacy.

As a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, Malhotra earned an M.Phil. in modern European history with distinction, studying the histories of empire and anticolonialism in shaping international order. Her dissertation research explored the role of epistemology in the global intellectual history of decolonization and has been published in Global Histories and the Journal of the History of Ideas blog. For the last four years, she has advocated for nuclear disarmament and risk reduction through her research, scholarship, and public commentary.

The 2024 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows join a distinguished community of past recipients, including U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy 03 M.B.A. ’03 M.D., the nation’s first surgeon general of Indian descent, who helped lead the national response to Ebola, Zika, and the coronavirus. It was recently announced that Murthy will be Yale’s 2024 Class Day speaker during Commencement weekend.

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