ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINE JEGARL

Wednesday, February 27, 2019 // The Statement 
 
3B

ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINE JEGARL

I 

had a tough time in business school 
from the get-go. It was terrifying to 
walk into the Winter Garden for the 
first time and pass by juniors in suits passed 
out on couches or sobbing on the phone 
after an exam. The relief I felt to finally 
not be an undecided freshman quickly dis-
solved during my first weeks. Something 
about that building and the people in it put 
tremendous gut-wrenching, hopeless pres-
sure on me.
Mostly, I was terrified because I had 
never felt so incompetent. As soon as I 
entered the Ross School of Business, I felt 
light years behind. Everyone was throw-
ing around words like “beta” and “bonds” 
while I couldn’t tell you what a stock really 
was. I had spent the past year pining to get 
in, and now I wasn’t so sure I had made the 
right decision.
Somehow, during a time when I was 
questioning every life decision I’d ever 
made, I found my sure calling for film. It 
was a complete accident and one of those 
life happenings that makes you believe in 
destiny. I had been cautiously shadowing a 
friend at the Ross club fair when I decided 
to walk out of the event. It wasn’t a heroic 
choice, but more of an embarrassing dash 
because I was so overwhelmed by the term 
“alternative investments” and didn’t know 
what it meant to consult things. Instead, I 
applied as a producer to an student orga-
nization called Filmic Productions, got 
accepted, and fell in love with the creative 
world. I felt euphoric for the first time since 
the school year had started.
For a while, I felt like I was on the right 
path. I wanted to tell stories that capture 
the human experience through film. I 
want to make someone exit a movie theatre 
feeling a changed person, a better person. 
Accounting didn’t give me the incredible 
feeling that making something out of noth-
ing does. It’s so fulfilling to produce unique 
ideas and channel it into art that affects 
society and makes people feel understood. 
So I dove into this world and gained intern-
ships in media. I was proud of my black 
sheep status at Ross and was not going to 
succumb to traditional career paths. I had 
found my fate and I was going to keep mov-
ing forward.
Inside though, the pressure was still 
mounting. My decision to go rogue felt like 
I had swallowed poison. My parents and 
friends were extremely supportive, but 
at the end of the day, I felt like I was fall-
ing short. While everyone around me was 
waking up early to make networking calls, 
studying prep material for cases, running 
between corporate presentations, and fol-
lowing their 5-year career plans, I was sim-
ply enjoying things and it didn’t feel right. 
I, too, wanted to be exhausted and talking 
numbers. Corporate sounded fancy and 
felt like the pinnacle goal. I hadn’t actually 
gone to business school to have fun, had I? 

I’d joined for the recruiting rush, the power 
suits, the perfected presentation decks and 
the signing bonuses. Movies were what 
people watched to relax. I yearned to be 
part of the intensity.
I secretly recruited and got a finance 
internship at JPMorgan. It caused an 
uproar with my family and friends. They 
knew I was just trying to make a point. Now 
the point had been made and they wanted 
me to go back to where I belonged, but I 
couldn’t stop. I wanted to know what it’s 
like to be among the Wall Street veterans 
and early morning Upper West Side com-
muters. Films would always exist no mat-
ter what, and business school had taught 
me that the opportunity to be among the 
real stars — among highly successful cor-
porate moguls — would be gone in a glance. 
I had to grasp it immediately before it was 
too late.
You can already guess what a mistake 
that was.
I fell into the trap fed to me by the cul-
ture of business school on how to formu-
late the best career. It was exciting at first, 
wearing my freshly pressed suit, receiving 
my badge to enter 270 Park, and clicking 
my heels to the elevator that would take 
me to my new team. They gave me JPM-
organ emblazoned gifts, provided a desk 
with two (two!) desktops, and set me up for 
coffee chats. I got to wear my JPMorgan 
banker bag in the subway, talk about how 
great Equinox is, and get Sweetgreen with 
associates.
I was constantly reminded that I was at 
a top firm and lucky to be in a team where 
I would do work for Jamie Dimon himself. 
“We’re the best team on the street”, they 
repeated. So I filled my coffee cups and fin-
ished my Excel sheets. I printed the team 
agendas and researched the daily invest-
ment news. I stayed late just to stay late and 
I arrived early just to arrive early.
Then at my midpoint meeting, my man-
ager said I couldn’t listen to music at work. 
I wasn’t on a team where I ever communi-
cated with others, so this confused me, but 
I obliged. I sheepishly slid back to my desk 
and went back to my PowerPoint. That’s 
when it hit me — there was no brain activ-
ity going on.
When I wasn’t listening to the Hamilton 
soundtrack or the latest Director’s Guild 
podcast, my brain was completely dead. 
Without the distraction, the work I was 
doing at my desk was painfully mundane. 
The summer felt like solitary confinement. 
I sat at one seat for hours on end, doing 
mind-numbing work for the higher up who 
would be sending it to the next higher up, 
and so on until it got lost in the vortex of 
useless presentations and files.
The work wasn’t difficult but it was 
awfully boring, and that I couldn’t stand. 
I feared ending up like Jackie in the office 
behind me, who wore the same Louboutin 

heels every day and who seemed to find the 
most genuine satisfaction in being able to 
brag about her Columbia MBA. The sec-
onds dragged to minutes, hours and days 
until finally my 10 weeks at the bank were 
done and I knew I would never go back.
When you frame your life decisions with 
happiness as the ultimate goal, it’s hard to 
choose to do what makes you happy. In cur-
rent times, exhaustion is romanticized and 
risk must always be hedged. We’re told to 
suffer now and reap the benefits later after 
setting ourselves up for a prolific long-term 
career. Even my strategy professor once 
asked the class, “It’s time to get serious. 
What’s more important to you, your grades 
or your friends?”
I think that the best decisions aren’t made 
based off pure happiness, but what you con-
sider as the best form of payment for your 
work. For some people, money is the right 
currency. It’s what they may need or what 
they truly want, and that’s OK. I do hope 
these 25-year-olds find joy in $17 cocktails 
at rooftop bars and weekend trips to the 
Hamptons. For others, it’s monotony and 
structured organizations and tasks. I mean, 
hey, someone has to do the accounting.
My currency is time. I could feel my 
time left on earth declining with every 
piece of data entered in excel. I saw the 
world continue without me as I stared out 
the same window from which I couldn’t 
move because it was admirable to not 
leave your desk. Millions of people 
walked through those streets while I 
watched, wondering what their sto-
ries were. Sitting there, I realized my 
time was depleting and nothing I did 
impacted the people actually making 
their way through the New York City 
streets — actually living.
The film industry is notoriously 
difficult and demanding. It’s hor-
rifyingly low pay and also requires 
painfully long work days. It takes 
a lot of grit to move up. The work 
can be unstable and the culture 
can be miserable. In my previous 
media related internships, bosses 
screamed at me, threw things at 
me and berated me. If I wanted to 
be happy, I probably wouldn’t choose 
a career in film. If I were fragile or 
wanted work-life balance, I definitely 
would run the other way. But I choose 
to do it because I know that the time 
I put into it is valuable for working 
toward a larger, more fulfilling goal. 
The time I spend trying to connect 
with the world and the people liv-
ing in it through this creative medi-
um we call film is so rewarding and 
extraordinary to me.
When I turned my back on corporate, 
people thought I was so bold. I don’t think 
it’s that triumphant. My goal isn’t to be a 
wild card in society, but to be pursuing 

something that is so exciting, encourage 
and challenging that I want to invest my 
time and soul into it and do the best job. 
I don’t regret going to business school or 
any of the employment opportunities I’ve 
taken. In fact, I’ve learned that my per-
sonality is exactly in line with business 
school — high strung and a little neurotic, 
but insanely efficient, professional and 
obsessed with Google Calendar. At the end 
of the day, it’s up to you to decide what’s 
best for yourself — something this past 
summer as well as the past 3 years of busi-
ness school revealed for me.
When my best friend (whom I met at 
Ross, by the way) was angry with me for 
recruiting in traditional corporate paths, 
he slipped me a note during class that said:

Dear Meesh,
Please stop being dumb and wasting 
your time. Pursue your passion and ignore 
the noise.
Regards,
Nick

It was great advice and though I hadn’t 
taken it, I hope someone else will. I hope 
more people will start valuing their pre-
cious time. It’s the only thing we can even-
tually transform into the “happiness” we 
humans always seem to be searching for. 
It’s the only thing that we can never really 
get back.

BY MICHELLE KIM, STATEMENT COLUMNIST
What’s your currency?

