"There is a lot more focus on postgraduate professional plans," says Cabot House Senior Tutor Robert H. Neugenboren '83. He adds that students structure their free time based on their future plans much more than when he was an undergraduate.

Clubs

Depending on who you ask, the impetus for joining extracurriculars can be genuine interest, practical experience or resume-building.

The opportunity to develop marketable skills increasingly draws students to College clubs, according to William Wright-Swadel, director of the Office of Career Services.

"I think students have two eyes looking at most projects right now," says Wright-Swadel, explaining that he thinks students keep one "eye" on the future while choosing their extracurriculars.

Clubs such as the Harvard InvestmentAssociation (HIA) fill this niche, providing aplace where future investment bankers can satiatetheir hunger for stocks and bonds, and offeradvice to undergraduates concerning the recruitingprocess.

While HIA is less than a year old it seems tohave caught on among undergraduates as its weeklymeetings are well attended and it boasts amembership of close to 200.

HIA president Mark M. Heiman '00 says moststudents join the investment association becausethey are currently interested in finance. He saysits activities also provide members with atraining unavailable in classes.

"[Students] join the Investment Club to see ifthis is a career path they want to take," Heimansays. "It's more vocational than what's offered inclasses."

Another recently founded group is Horizons,which since 1994 has compiled a resume book forminority students and hosted a career forum in thespring.

HSA remains the largest pre-businessorganization on campus. Founded in 1957 as anumbrella organization for disparate studentbusinesses (some of which were run out ofstudents' dorm rooms), HSA has grown into anindependent corporation with a gross revenue ofmore than $4 million annually.

"A lot of students use [HSA] for a type offorum for seeing if they would go into thebusiness world," says Karen Lau '98, former HSAvice president. "You get a lot of responsibility.Nowhere else does someone give you a $100,000budget and say `run with it.'"

This year, for the first time, HSA and FidelityInvestments co-sponsored a campus-wideentrepreneurial contest. Offers of a $5,000 grandprize and $10,000 of seed capital from Fidelitydrew a wide variety of student proposals, rangingfrom a translation service for businesses withinternational interests to a system that wouldallow students to access the equivalent of CliffNotes online.

`If Bill Gates had been entered into thiscontest, he would not have even become afinalist," said Fidelity representative C. BruceJohnstone '64.

Diamonds

The increased undergraduate interest in futurebusiness plans reflects an increasinglycompetitive job market and a booming economy whichresults in high pay-outs to those in the nation'smost lucrative fields.