Columbia’s Most Popular (Unofficial) Major: Finance Recruitment
At Columbia, many minimize learning and maximize careerism: ‘I don’t think I learned anything last semester.’
Every young person faces a question as they transition into independence: how to balance financial stability and personal fulfillment. A large contingent of the student population believes they have a solution—finance.
This field has been overwhelmingly popular in recent years. In 2021, for example, about 30 percent of recent Columbia graduates held roles in finance or consulting, and four of the top 10 hiring organizations were in finance. Popularity begets popularity, and current Columbia students, seeing the industry’s influence, are entering finance in droves.
Grace Yuting Zhou, CC ’26, is the head of marketing at Columbia Financial Investment Group and a member of the women’s swim team. “Generally, athletes are econ majors, so I think that definitely has an influence,” she told Sundial. “Also, it’s kind of your go-to when you don’t know what you want to do—everyone who doesn’t is an econ major.”
“I definitely did fall into that in the beginning, but I will say now I’m glad with my choice, because I actually enjoy it; I’m not doing it just because I need an easy degree,” she added.
Likewise, Jenny Li, CC ’27, explained, “When I was a freshman, one of the reasons that I initially chose the investment banking division…was because everyone else was doing it. So I was just going with the flow and not really thinking whether it’s for me or not, because compared to tech roles, it does have a lower barrier to entry.”
It seems that in the quest for financial stability in a career, students are donning their finance bro vests and heading off to Wall Street. But is this popularity with finance a good thing? Should large percentages of Columbia graduates be competing for the same Wall Street paycheck? Some don’t think so.
“I feel like with more people entering the field because they think it’s a good title, not because they really like it,” Li said, “it kind of turns this field into a competitive arena.”
Similarly, Zhou told me she thinks finance has gotten “competitive in a way where it’s almost toxic.”
“You’ll notice how the recruiting timeline gets pushed forward every single year. Only two or three years ago, they probably were recruiting during their junior year for their junior year internship. But now, in my year, they started recruiting in the middle of sophomore year,” she said.
Major banks like JPMorgan Chase even offer programs for students in high school. And as students increasingly prioritize recruiting and careerism earlier in their life, academics are taking a backseat and learning is no longer the priority for many.
“Recruiting itself is like another class,” Zhou said. “It takes up the same amount of time, if not more. And honestly speaking, academics was not my top priority. I was almost like, ‘As long as I don’t fail this class, that’s good enough for me,’ and I don’t think I learned anything last semester.”
“I’m in class and I’m sending out coffee chat emails. I’m not even listening, or I just can’t even focus on what [my professor] is saying,” she added.
When we ignore subjects that don’t seem relevant to our careers, we not only stifle our curiosity but also limit our potential to remain relevant in a future where our industry may be uprooted by innovation. Moreover, a liberal arts education is meant to encourage intellectual curiosity and a mindset of lifelong learning, no matter how relevant the content may be for our careers. When the acquisition of knowledge is an intrinsic value we hold rather than a temporary phase of our teenage lives, we can embrace future change and adapt to new realities.
Now, college is seen mainly as a means to financial stability—a place that is supposed to introduce us to lucrative fields for high-paying jobs. “I think what I have seen at Columbia tracks the sort of national picture, which is a greater emphasis on financial remuneration as the desired end of college,” said Roosevelt Montas, CC ’95, Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English and a frequent speaker and writer on the topic of liberal education.
“I would say to students that they’re going to have many careers in their lives, probably different types of jobs, and that you should think of the education you’re getting in these four years as something that is valuable and meaningful for a lifetime,” Montas said. “You should try to contextualize the meaning and the purpose of education in the long run, rather than just in the short run.”
Whatever career we might choose, the knowledge, skills, and values gained from our college experience are timeless. Though the current environment may minimize learning and maximize careerism, supply responds to demand, as every economics major knows—if we look for something more than just a job offer during college, we are very likely to find it.
Ms. Sant is a senior at Columbia College studying history and a staff writer for Sundial.