I've always wanted to be a doctor.This means different things to some people. One of my male friends wants to be a gynecologist. He thinks this will get him more ass, but I believe it will turn him gay. Another of my friends wishes to be a farm veterinarian - while this will guarantee asses of many sizes, they might not be of the desired species.
When I say I want to be a doctor, though, I'm not talking about medicine at all - I'm talking about a Ph.D. With this goal in mind, I set about a pretty well-defined course. I did well in high school. I applied to quality colleges and attended one. I found a field - economics - that I am passionate about and want to contribute to.
But now, as graduation looms, questions arise about what to do next.
As per my so-called Life Plan, I applied to graduate schools, and while I was rejected from top economics programs - Chicago, Harvard, Bob Jones' University of Moral Choices - I did manage to get accepted to a couple of schools. But this leads to a question: What do I do? I could start a five-year program, enter the world of academia immediately and live out the rest of my life in an ivory tower. Or I could spend a year or two working to improve my chances of getting in to one of the better programs and learn a thing or two about the so-called real world.
The pros and cons of each choice are numerous and difficult to weigh against each other. Clouding the matter is the problem of information. All of my knowledge about the field of economics is colored by my various classroom experiences. Friends already in the working world have complained about the difference between reality and the illusion presented to them during a job interview.
So in the end, the decision I must make - the decision we all must make - is between alternatives that we cannot judge with any idea of accuracy.
With all of this uncertainty about my future, it might be useful to seek out an expert. Let's see ... out of all the subjects taught at this fine institution, which one is chiefly concerned with the topic of binding decision making? Which department works to explain how human beings make choices about investments, time, money and ... oh. Yeah, that's right. Economics.
Sweet Irony, thou hast pierced my heart with an icicle and my life force doth flow out of my ruptured arteries like the supply of cheap housing in this antagonistic market.
So what am I going to do? It's unclear, and I have only a month to decide. But it's clear that after all of the time spent teaching fact after fact and theorem after theorem, our society has forgotten how to teach ourselves life itself in any sort of systematic way.
Sure, life itself is disorganized and it's definitely a good idea that people learn some of this in the most disorganized way possible - late-night partying, early morning hangovers and awkward moments when you cannot remember the names of the people you are sharing a bed with.
But this leads to an incredibly unbalanced distribution of knowledge. My personal experiences have left me with arcane knowledge about home ownership and money management, but nothing about how to keep my girlfriends from cheating on me. Meanwhile, my roommate can tell stories about sex that would stun Jenna Jameson but cannot figure out how to balance his checkbook.
Maybe it's time for economists to turn away from explaining the decisions that people have already made, and start thinking about how to help people make better ones. Maybe it's time for us to stop thinking about the future in nebulous terms and learn how to better cope with uncertainty.
Maybe I should be a gynecologist instead.
Keaton believes that most friction between individuals can be simply explained by the fact that we're all neurotic, psychotic and a little bit homoerotic. As for the job search? Don't ask. E-mail him at keatonmiller@wisc.edu.
