HCEF is coordinating with VFA to organize a recruitment event on campus early in the fall.

Chris S. Paik ’09, a member of VFA’s Board, said he thinks VFA’s message is a particularly important one for the Harvard community, which is generally very “risk-averse.”

Calling the financial services “prestigious, well paying, safe,” and “logical,” he acknowledged that starting a business means accepting a high rate of failure—an idea that Harvard students may have trouble taking to heart, he said.

He said students mistakenly see enterpreneurship as only high-risk, high-reward. “If you get it right, you’re Mark Zuckerberg, and if you get it wrong, you live in your parents’ garage for the rest of your life,” he said about students' perceptions.

But Paik hopes that VFA can gain the prestige of TFA—and start to eliminate the stigma of risk Harvard students associate with entrepreneurship.

—Staff writer Radhika Jain can be reached at radhikajain@college.harvard.edu.

This article has been revised to reflect the following clarification.

Clarification: An earlier version of the Sept. 6 news article "New Program Leads Grads to Start-Ups" incorrectly implied that a quote from Chris S. Paik '09 reflected his beiefs rather than students' misperceptions.