Best Career Option for New Graduates? Government Service

In my work at Harvard and MIT, I get to meet and mentor some of today’s most impressive young people. Many are weighing a variety of career options. Regardless of their field, they invariably mention common elements that they want most from their future jobs: an opportunity to make the world a better place, do consequential work, grapple with cutting-edge technology, and help shape the course of global events.

Jobs in finance, consulting, technology, or law are appealing to many graduates, and many recent graduates find that they can apply their spirit of public service to these private-sector roles. But few, if any, of these roles satisfy the deep hunger for career purpose as well as working for government.

Many students balk at this idea, and understandably so. There are good reasons why young people today are disillusioned with our dysfunctional capital. I frequently share their disappointment. But after nearly four decades working for and in the Department of Defense (DoD), I can attest to this generation that government service, for all its frustrations, offers a deeply honorable and rewarding path to a life of consequence and meaning.