Next fall, 80 to 100 Harvard undergraduates will return a week early from their summer breaks to attend the first Harvard Business Leadership Program. The five day conference, sponsored by Harvard Student Agencies (HSA), aims to introduce undergraduates to basic ideas of business management and entrepreneurship.

The conference, and the students who attend it, are part of a process that one graduate school admissions officer calls "working backwards," which, at its extremes, can mean selecting summer jobs, extracurricular activities and classes themselves on the basis of their career implications.

Professor of English and Comparative Literature James Engell '73 decries this trend in a recent issue of Harvard Magazine, arguing that increasing careerism in university culture, and a shift of emphasis from humanities to more marketable fields such as economics, risks a future in which "we will soon be looking at not a weakened tradition of humanistic learning and education, but a defunct one."

But HSA organizers say that, like all good businessmen, they are only responding to the laws of supply and demand.

And the numbers bear them out.

The percentage of recruiters on campus has increased more than 60 percent since 1990. Over this time period, enterprising students founded more than a dozen business and financial associations. (Of course, as with many start-ups, some went bust in their initial year.)

The past year alone has seen the creation of an entrepreneurs club, several investment associations (including one specifically focused on minorities), the initiation of the first annual consulting competition and the formation of several student-run mutual funds.

Student leaders and College administrators say that these clubs enhance, not diminish, a liberal arts education, by providing practical skills and business experience unavailable in the classroom.

"The College doesn't offer classes in financial management and some business skills, and a perfect way to do that is to be able to join together with students who one day may join the same profession," says Student Activities Coordinator Susan Cooke.

Spades

Participation in extracurricular organizations has always given Harvard students a chance to dig for opportunity beyond the academic sphere.

The number of extracurriculars in general has risen in recent years, but the opportunities to prepare for the business world in particular has increased markedly. Students organizations that help students prepare for careers in finance and consulting have almost doubled in the past year, and existing groups have expanded their efforts.

At the same time, the number of people entering the world of business has remained unchanged over the past 15 years. In 1983, 21 percent of seniors cited business as their most likely field of work, while last year 18 percent said they expected to join the business world.

Taken together, these statistics suggest that the rise in pre-professional student groups is not due to an increased interest in business, but to a greater student pre-occupation with future prospects.

Notably, some administrators have begun calling these activities "co-curricular," signifying the new way students are using their undergraduate activities to complement their educational and professional plans.