Continuing on…
I had planned to launch right into the second version of this story without preamble, but I can’t do it. As preparation for this post, I reread my application essays for the first time in almost a year. An application essay should never be reread. Rather, it should be impaled on a wooden stake, riddled with silver bullets, set aflame, doused in holy water, hung with garlic, encased in concrete, and flung into the sun.
I wrote four essays for Wharton. Three of them hold up fairly well. They give a strong sense of who I am, they hit all the right notes regarding my achievements and values, and they flow well both within and between themselves.
The fourth one is the main essay, the money essay, the one that describes my “decision to pursue an MBA at the Wharton School this year” and how this decision relates to my “career goals for the future.” This essay is wincingly bad. It is also the one I must now present to you.
Before I do so, I’m going to briefly describe the magic trick that this essay is trying to pull off. Magic tricks should never be explained, but this is supposed to be educational, so try to keep your eye on the shell with the ball under it. OK?
In addition to the usual measured boasting, an essay has to address any real or perceived weaknesses in a candidate’s application. A strong defense matters as much as a good offense. Biz school admissions officers review thousands of resumes each year, many of them very similar and similarly impressive. Along with the stated list of accomplishments, every resume contains an implicit list of weaknesses. If nothing else, the indistinguishability of a successful and uneventful career can be a weakness. Minimizing those weaknesses is as important as maximizing the strengths.
Here is a by no means exhaustive list of my weaknesses:
- As a former engineer, I have to combat the stereotype that I weigh 400 pounds, wear my hear in a ponytail, show up at the office barefoot, and speak Klingon.
- As a former Silicon Valley tech worker, my resume stinks of dot-com refugee. This is more of a perceived weakness than a real one, as I never worked at a fly-by-night internet company. Nevertheless, I must make myself stand out from the likely flood of pets.com employees.
- A much bigger problem is that my professed career interest is international development, a field in which I have absolutely no experience. I may as well tell the committee I want to be an astronaut or a pastry chef. How can I claim to be serious about pursuing a field I’ve never worked in? Who is to say this isn’t a whim, or, worse, a ploy to get into school?
- A bigger problem still is that, at the time I was applying, I was in the middle of a year-and-a-half-long vacation. And though everyone tells me how much they’d like to do the same thing, everyone also knows that traveling the world is simply not the sort of thing that serious-minded people do. I did it, and even I don’t think it is the sort of thing that serious-minded people do.
Here then is my attempt to weave the events of version 1 into a logical narrative that points inevitably toward a bright and profitable future. I’m going to present it in outline form, because the full story is, quite frankly, fairly dull.
Version 2: Steinosaur saves the world
- Attended Stanford. Majored in biology. Goal was a career in disease research. Theme: I have always wanted to put my intellectual passions to work in the service of a humanitarian goal.
- Somewhat awkwardly work in a side point here about my interest in other cultures, my keen awareness of the differential in standards of living between the developing and developed worlds, and the relevance of disease research to this problem. Insert anecdote that shows me empathizing with poor brown people. Theme: pretty damned obvious.
- Toward end of academic career, discovered parallels between the neurobiology I was studying and computer science. Theme: intellectually broad-minded, curious.
- Seeking to combine interests, I pursued and obtained a research position at Stanford Department of Medical Informatics, despite lack of formal training in CS. Theme: persistent, hardworking, highly motivated.
- Internet takes off. Fantastic opportunities abound. Realizing I am witnessing something unique, I decide to take the plunge into tech. Theme: same as (iv).
- Next few years I move onward and upward, accumulating skills, experiences, achievements, what have you. Constantly seeking new opportunities to learn. Responsiblities encompass product development, client management, engineering, sales, general management, finance, legal, etc. Theme: standard essay fare touting my accomplishments and breadth. I am definitely not your average engineer, no sir. Subtext is that my career digression is excusable, because the opportunities in Silicon Valley are too fantastic to pass up.
- Throughout, my primary motivation remains seeing the effect of my work on the people who use my products. Insert rousing anecdote here involving someone’s whose life was touched by the eBusiness suite I worked on. Little Timmy, whose leukemia was cured by drugs ordered through my electronic procurement system, or something. Theme: despite all appearances, I’m not a total sellout; my job satisfaction comes from the human factor, I swear.
- Nevertheless, I eventually reach a point where the learning curve starts to flatten, and in assessing my next move, I realize I have gotten too far away from my original goals. Despite the considerable risks of doing so, I leave my job to see if I can recapture some of those earlier passions. Theme: the trip isn’t about a bad job market or my distaste for doing actual work; rather than being shocking self-indulgent, the trip is actually something, dare I say, quite noble.
- I spend the intervening time investigating options; talking to journalists, economists, academics, private sector employees, public sector employees, nonprofit employees, the whole enchilada; and also indulging my sense of adventure. I come away from this process with a conviction that my experiences in the private sector and in technology are highly relevant to international development. Theme: closing the loop. Although the path I took was not the one I originally planned, I have reached a point where I am ready to apply my skills and energy to pressing humanitarian problems. Subtext is that I wasn’t just fucking around while traveling.
- I need an MBA at this point to manage the career transition from tech to i-dev and also to plug the gaps in my business education. After graduation, I see myself working at a multilateral institution such as the IFC for a few years before moving back to the private sector etc., etc. Theme: Wharton = stepping stone on path to glory.
There you have it. Ten simple steps from research biologist to international financier.
Now tell me: which shell has the ball under it? Which of the two versions is the true one? This is the part of the story where I’m supposed to say, “Both versions are true. Each selectively portrays meaningful moments from my personal history, reflected and refracted through the prism of my ass, blah blah blah…” Let me lay it on the line for you: the first one is right. I’m a total screw up. I got into Wharton by making sweet, sweet love to an admissions officer. Also, my parents donated a building.
No, that’s not it. Let me try again. Neither version is right, although both have some merit. The first one errs in portraying me as far more hapless than I actually am. Software companies were not actually hiring furloughed inmates, even at the height of the bubble. Happenstance certainly played a role in the twists and turns of my career, but being able to take judicious advantage of unforeseen opportunities is a strength, not a weakness. People generally don’t just blunder into Wharton, and by the time I applied, my resume hit all the requisite notes regarding teams managed, projects led, revenue delivered. International development is not a whim, although I freely admit that this decision has yet to be tested in the job market. I admit that I do not know where I will be in five years. No one does.
The second version errs in the other direction. Although it is accurate in all the details, it is far too pat. Patness is something of an inevitability in an essay that could be titled “My Life in 1,000 Words.” The fact that it is also hideously cheesy is inherent to the application essay form. I make no apologies. Please don’t let the smart alecky asides and general badness of this version distract you from the fact that it is essentially heartfelt and true.
So here I am. Training to be an astronaut, working on my pastry recipes, and studying finance. About the only thing I can say with any certainty is that five years hence I will still be wistfully daydreaming about biking across China.
