college is a scam that sometimes works.
most college students are probably social climbers
🎶 Dreams - The Cranberries​
Some personal news: my lit agent submitted my book proposal to publishers last week!! When I first opened up that blank Word document in June, I could not have imagined it one day morphing into the 45-page proposal that it is today. I know it's only the beginning of something much longer, but I really am proud of it--all the rewrites, all the pivots in framing, all the angst over who the hell am I to write anything for the greater world? Halfway through August, I actually had an existential crisis and went into a spiral that maybe I should get an MFA before writing anything. (Ah, degrees--the only way I can feel confident about anything!)
This week, I contemplate whether my love of degrees is a sign that I'm an easy mark and drop a link to that gender discrimination lawsuit filed against Kirkland & Ellis last week. (Yes, really. 👀)
P.S. My World Mental Health Day fundraiser is still open for a few more days! I'm matching up to $1K in donations, and so far, we've raised $570 for four wonderful organizations--let's get to that $2,000!
scams prey on our social climbing desires.
For as long as I can remember, my parents harped about the importance of college. We lived close enough to Berkeley and Stanford that my schools would sometimes have these college field trips, which I assume were to instill in us students an aspiration to one day attend these illustrious institutions (but were in reality excuses to goof off and flirt with our crushes over the backs of the bus seats). I can't pinpoint exactly when, where, or how I became aware that going to college was a Very Important Life Event, but by middle school, I became obsessed with the idea of going to an Ivy League school--an obsession that my parents didn't attempt to curb in any way. (Hearing about so-and-so's daughter or son getting into Stanford annually and why can't you be more like them also didn't help.)
Throw in media like Gilmore Girls, Greek, and Gossip Girl, and the simulacrum of college was complete. (If you want a deeper discussion of Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation in the modern era, I highly recommend this read.) Looking back, I was quite silly--I had friends in college when I was in high school, and I certainly visited their cramped triple bunkbed dorm rooms often enough to know that college was not this perfectly coifed, highfalutin experience that I had made up in my head. And yet--
"Con artistry works because we want it to work, because it appeals to something that's very deeply human, which is our beliefs, our need for hope, our optimism, the fact that we see the world differently than it actually is," Maria Konnikova, a psychologist and the author of The Confidence Game: Why We Fall For It... Every Time,* says of this discrepancy between what we have seen and what we believe. "Everyone is vulnerable to this, even if you don't think you are."
I'm a huge lover of scammer stories--Theranos, Fyre Fest, Anna Delvey--and used to watch documentaries about those stories in equal parts fascination with the grifter's sheer confidence and smug satisfaction that I would never have fallen for their ruse. It turns out that smug satisfaction was unwarranted--after all, hadn't I very clearly bought into the scheme of higher education in the Ivy League? Hadn't I begged (from my parents) and borrowed (from the government) an outrageous amount to cover tuition and board in the hopes that enrollment would significantly advance my financial and social standing in life?
In fact, I was so excited when my application was accepted by Yale that neither my parents nor I seriously scrutinized the college's employment statistics or asked to speak with graduates a few years out. The simulacrum of Yale was so strong, so powerful that I put down my deposit with nary a second thought. Was this not the same allure and routine that entraps people into Ponzi schemes, LuLaRoe, and cryptocurrency banking? It wasn't like I had completed mountains of due diligence on educational institutions before I enrolled--the only real difference, it seemed, between the scammed and me was just... luck.
🔖 open tabs
​Kirkland & Ellis, the world's richest law firm, and five of its partners were sued last week in a gender discrimination lawsuit. The plaintiff was an intellectual property litigation associate, and she is representing herself in the lawsuit. (The 130-page complaint can be found here.) She alleges that she was paid less than comparable male associates, forced to work during planned vacations so that male associates could enjoy their vacations, and booked on a commercial flight back after a trial while a male associate took a charter flight home with partners in an "all-boys' club flight." Law firms are notoriously litigation-averse, for obvious reasons, so I always find these lawsuits attempting to pierce that biglaw guardedness quite fascinating. I'll be keeping an eye on this case as it develops!
Probably due to my being in my own transition period, I love reading about people who have made career changes. Michelle Obama's commentary is probably my favorite: I’ve shifted roles and jobs as my life demanded it. There are times when you can work 60 or 70 hour weeks for less pay, and there are times when you may need to make more money or be home more consistently for your family. Knowing that at the outset — that any career change will probably be followed by more changes, in varying degrees — can help you keep things in perspective if and when you start to re-evaluate things once again. It perfectly captures the even keel and openness to adapting that we need in a modern career. Michael Lewis is also a huge inspiration to me, although I would be lying if I didn't admit that I was also incredibly jealous of his charmed life since birth. (I mean, a descendant of both Lewis of Lewis and Clark fame and James Monroe? Seriously?? And Princeton despite bad grades???)
Nathaniel and I watched all of season 3 of Derry Girls this past weekend, and WOW. Just WOW. As someone who always felt like I had to live in American camouflage, I was astounded by how effective and compelling Lisa McGee's series about a group of teenage girls during the Troubles was. She doesn't water down the Northern Irish lingo (a few of my faves: cracker; wain; ride) nor does she aggrandize or downplay the violent backdrop of the Troubles. The finale left me in tears for a good half hour as I tried to compose myself in the aftermath of the show's genius.
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