Failure, at and after Princeton

Reader comment on: Kagan on the Difference Between Yale and West Point

Submitted by Van Wallach (United States), Feb 5, 2015 10:20

If you're looking for an example of failure by a Princetonian, I qualify. I started early, failing Math 103 (calculus) as a sophomore after taking the class pass/fail. For this I had a friendly discussion with an academic dean. My first job after graduating with an economics degree in 1980 was as a reporter-researcher at Forbes Magazine, where I started floundering immediately and remained in anxiety mode until my manager mercifully took me to lunch at a Chinese restaurant after a year and told me to find a new job, which I finally did, sliding all the way down to a schlocky trade magazine. Two years after that, the magazine's publisher left New York and I found myself standing on an unemployment line in Brooklyn -- not your typical Princeton career trajectory. All in all, I've been laid off or let go four times. I finally found my career groove and developed a lot of self-knowledge and resilience in the process. I can't say I recommend this life path, but I survived.


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