Target School Devolution is Paradise

It’s early December, and a brisk morning settles over the northeast. Sunlight filters through the leaves from the venerable oak tree on the dorm quad, illuminating the ivy-league pennants hanging from your window. It’s been a grueling month for you, a newly 17-year-old senior at the nation’s premier academic hazing institution (think Exeter/Andover). Yesterday, you spent 8am-3pm getting intellectually molested at a roundtable with your Mensa-level peers (you couldn’t reconcile virtue-based ethics—career foreshadowing). To make matters worse, after class, coach didn’t let you lead the team chant following water polo practice. Last night, you crashed following a few hours of refining your college common app essay to round out the day. Now it’s morning. You throw on your Canada Goose jacket before venturing out into the tundra and, in a stimulant-free haze, you do it all over again.

Unsurprisingly, the tri-varsity sport schedule you took on to please your bloodline that blessed you with a 6'5 frame didn’t exactly render you a lethal weapon in the classroom. In conjunction, the GPA hasn’t been overwhelmingly attractive. "Yeah, man, my grades aren't the best, but check out my ECs—these leadership roles totally balance out the transcript," you say, coping with your boys in the hall between classes. Venting about the college admissions process is basically religion at this time of the year. 

Fast forward a couple months, and shit hits the metaphorical jet turbine. You give your prestige-obsessed parents the “they hit the Pentagon” call in early spring, and before you know it, you’re choosing between a west coast state school or pursuing Northwestern Mutual full-time for the next four years. Your dreams of following the spotless Exeter/Andover, Harvard/Yale, IB/PE track were now shattered. This is rock bottom. 

                                                                                 ~~~

You wake up under your Exeter/Andover flag and take a deep breath of deliciously non-target dorm air, the residue of last night's technical training session still spread across your desk. Although your superior high school education afforded you an understanding of finance that few college freshmen could dream of, you still practice humility by reading guides every morning and staying up to date with the broader markets. "Better safe than sorry", you think to yourself with a smile, knowing your prestigious background and pure Aryan genetics will undoubtedly make you the top candidate for your state-school’s "selective" investment banking program. 

You blast Gunna’s “Sum 2 Prove” on your JBL while you go through the early morning motions. You know that your non-target tenacity will carry you far through the recruiting process, but still, you got sum 2 prove. 

You start lying to yourself. “Sure, you could’ve dropped sports, ripped a 4.0, and attended Harvard with the rest of your high school class, but you can land a role in megafund PE without leveraging the nepotism that an intellectually inferior Harvard student would be forced to rely upon.” “Not only are they dumber than you, they couldn't possibly imagine what it's like to enjoy the college experience" you think to yourself as you step outside into the 80-degree weather, immediately spotting several scantily-clad women.

You head to your first morning class (an incredibly primitive session on financial accounting) and can't help but notice that your professor made the critical mistake of wearing a black shirt under a blue blazer. You chortle to yourself. He has no idea what bankers wear. You, on the other hand, know that a blue blazer pairs only with a white or light blue shirt, and could never possibly be caught wearing the disaster of an outfit that your five foot four (you're 6'5) accounting professor put together. Despite spending the majority of class typing up a cleverly-worded networking email to elicit a few chuckles, you're ultimately told to close your laptop and give your attention to several very special guest speakers from "one of the most prestigious professional services firms in the world"- it's KPMG. Annoyed that the professor has chosen to waste your time, you stare straight forward for the remainder of class, exuding an aura of ice-cold stoicism.

You saunter to the student union on your way home to pick up Chick-Fil-A (The Evercore of fast food) (#1 with extra ranch, your stomach cannot handle spicy foods) and feel your phone vibrate while you're waiting in line– it's the email you've been waiting for from the IB program's interview committee. As expected, you passed your interview with flying colors and have been offered a position in next year's cohort. On the walk home, you take a moment to reflect upon all you've accomplished during your freshman year; you've successfully made friends, gained five pounds, and have been identified as the Victor Wembanyama of non-target finance. 

Before EOD your buddy from IB Club shoots you an invite to the local bar– there’s two free shots upon arrival and the school mascot is allegedly grinding on the Dean of Students in the back. Without a second thought you book yourself an Uber Black with the extra money you saved from the state-school tuition. You settle into the back seat of a jet-black Cadillac SUV on your way to get shitfaced on a Tuesday night.

Maybe non-target life isn’t too bad.