Harris said that although the program may seem overly idealistic in its goals, the people in it tend to be fairly realistic about their prospects, if not actually pessimistic, as Roth says he is.

Roth says some of the job qualities he wants are independence, conditions conducive to creativity and learning, responsibility, the chance to influence company policy, and a flexible schedule.

Roth would like to work for a large company in the area of worker dissatisfaction and alienation, factors which he believes lead to inefficiency.

He thinks this inefficiency could be at least partially alleviated by restructuring lines of company communication and changing schedules. The job he wants would allow him to study a company's operating efficiency and suggest options and alternatives to relieve worker dissatisfaction and increase output.

Harris thinks this is the kind of ambition that can be translated into an innovative job.

He thinks it may be possible for him to get a company to hire someone like Roth but admits that a company with this sort of problem would be more likely to hire a consulting firm with trained specialists rather than an inexperienced, out-of-work graduate. But he still has hope.

"We might get a company to take someone like Eric on a small scale instead of their hiring a large, expensive consulting firm," he said. "It's easily worth it for the company to at least try something like that."

Both Roth and Harris have doubts about how the task force approach to creating innovative jobs will work. Roth said he tends to be cynical and pessimistic about the idea; Harris said he just doesn't know. Roth, out of work, said he needs a job immediately to pay off, among other things, his loan from Harvard. Harris said he doesn't want the task force to hold out false hope to its participants, but the idea is worth a try simply because it is all there is.

Both say, however, that most of their classmates from Harvard are either unemployed or unhappy in the jobs they have. Their friends' jobs, they say, are neither challenging nor fulfilling.

It seems that that other big "H"--happiness--does not automatically come with a Harvard degree.