Elite Students Are Turning Away From Cushy Jobs in Finance, Tech and Consulting. Here’s the Unexpected Route They’re Taking Instead.
Instead of accepting summer internships at tech or finance companies, students at Princeton and Yale are pursuing different dreams.
Key Takeaways
- Instead of obtaining a summer internship and graduating with a guaranteed seat at a top firm, an increasing number of top-tier students are trying to join the AI race with their own startups.
- Some students said that they have learned more in one month of creating their startup than they did during an entire semester of college.
- Founders are split on if they should drop out of college to build their companies.
Wall Street is a goal of the past. High-achieving students at top universities are turning away from traditionally high-paying career paths and going all-in on entrepreneurship instead.
One example is Princeton University student Charles Muehlberger, who recently told The Wall Street Journal that instead of accepting a summer internship at a major tech firm or a rocket engineering company, he chose to travel to San Francisco and found an AI startup. His business, Conifer, seeks to bring open-source AI models offline and make them locally available on devices.
Muehlberger believes strongly in his startup, to the extent that he took a gap year from Princeton to work on it. “Those who are building now get a voice in what the future looks like,” he told the Journal.
Muehlberger is one of a growing number of students who have opted to take the road less traveled. Instead of obtaining an internship in tech, finance or consulting and graduating with a guaranteed seat at a top firm, these students are trying to join the AI race now by creating their own businesses.
Silicon Valley is keeping pace. An increasing number of programs in the Valley are geared towards these startup students, providing free housing, mentorship and networking, per the Journal. These students are so immersed in their startup dreams that they may drop out of college to pursue them full-time when the summer is over. Some told the Journal that they have learned more in one month of creating their startup than they did during an entire semester of college.
Recent college graduates are facing a tough job market. Fields like law and software engineering face the threat of automation, causing students to create opportunities for themselves.
Drop out or stay in school?
Leïa Ryan recently finished her sophomore year at Yale. Instead of accepting an offer at a biotech company and furthering her dream of pursuing a doctorate in genetics, Ryan co-founded a startup called Cortex, which creates knowledge systems for biolabs. Ryan started Cortex in March and has raised $600,000 at a $10 million valuation so far, per the Journal.
Ryan is on a leave of absence from Yale, but she intends to drop out permanently. She says that it is “quite irresponsible” to be in school after raising money, highlighting that she has made a promise to her investors by accepting funds. “Any serious founder will drop out,” she told the Journal.
Other founders feel differently about skipping out on an Ivy League education. Gauri Kshettry just finished her freshman year at Princeton University and recently started Strata, an AI platform designed to simplify industrial reports. She will not be dropping out because of the intellectual growth and safety net that a degree provides.
“You kind of always want to have a degree at the end of the day,” she told the Journal.
Ann Miura-Ko, a partner at the venture-capital firm Floodgate, agrees with Kshettry. At a dinner with college-age startup founders last month, according to the Journal, Miura-Ko told students to stay in school. She said it is difficult to know which companies will make it to billion-dollar, or “unicorn,” status.
Key Takeaways
- Instead of obtaining a summer internship and graduating with a guaranteed seat at a top firm, an increasing number of top-tier students are trying to join the AI race with their own startups.
- Some students said that they have learned more in one month of creating their startup than they did during an entire semester of college.
- Founders are split on if they should drop out of college to build their companies.
Wall Street is a goal of the past. High-achieving students at top universities are turning away from traditionally high-paying career paths and going all-in on entrepreneurship instead.
One example is Princeton University student Charles Muehlberger, who recently told The Wall Street Journal that instead of accepting a summer internship at a major tech firm or a rocket engineering company, he chose to travel to San Francisco and found an AI startup. His business, Conifer, seeks to bring open-source AI models offline and make them locally available on devices.
Muehlberger believes strongly in his startup, to the extent that he took a gap year from Princeton to work on it. “Those who are building now get a voice in what the future looks like,” he told the Journal.
