4. Start your own company.

Sure, the days of the dotcom billionaires are now past, but that doesn't mean you can't start or buy your own business. Get a bank loan and open a franchise restaurant in your home town. Find some cheap, nostalgic piece of clothing you can have mass-produced in Asia, then take out a sumptuously-worded romantic ad in The New Yorker and sell the things for an 800 percent markup (if you think I'm kidding, that's how the J. Peterman catalog was started). Or, best of all, find a couple of electrical engineers who have hit on The New New Thing in computing, tell them you'll help them relate to the non-geeks of the world, then take them public and reap your fortune.

The best thing about starting your own company is that it's a no-lose proposition. If you're right about your idea and you execute well, you're going to make a lot of money doing something you truly love. If you're wrong, you'll gain experience for next time, and companies will actually hire you over less-experienced but more "successful" people. There used to be a stigma to business failure; now it's a badge of honor.

It's a dark secret that none of the campus recruiters or the Office of Career Services staff will tell you, but if you want to be a titan of the business world one day, you certainly don't need to spend your early twenties locked on the 38th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper, running spreadsheets for 14 hours a day. Business, at its core, is a creative enterprise--so why not exercise a little creativity in finding your first job in the business world?

Alex F. Rubalcava '02 is a government concentrator in Eliot House. His column appears on alternate Mondays.