“I was not entirely sure that I wanted to be a journalist—so it was a really great process of being organically introduced to the business, learning from great people who have often been in the business for 20 to 40 years.”

Chideya concentrated in English at the College, studying Shakespeare and the modern novel, an education that she says shaped the way she looked at politics.

She also wrote for The Harvard Independent but says she was not “a hardcore journalism person.” Her turning point was a summer internship with Newsweek, which evolved into a job during the semester.

At Newsweek, her boss let her take interesting assignments, including reporting at a women’s prison and covering a same-sex custody battle.

“I got to do some really interesting work, and that’s what got me into doing [journalism],” Chideya says.

Citing shifts in interest like Chideya’s, Davis notes that students’ most challenging choice is not deciding what to do decades down the road but rather organizing the first five years of their post-undergraduate life.

“It’s the first time for a lot of Harvard students to not have an obvious next step, because for many students the next step after high school was Harvard,” Davis explains.

FIRST STEPS, FIRST JOBS

When Schrage graduated from Duke University, he knew he wanted to travel the world before moving on with his career goals.

After attending bartending school and managing a restaurant to save money, Schrage embarked on a series of global adventures. He talked with students in the wake of the Tiananmen Square incident, rode camels alongside smugglers on the India-Pakistan border, motorcycled in the Golden Triangle area in Southeast Asia, slept on rooftops in Old Jerusalem, and traveled on third-class trains across Indonesia.

“It really gave me a way to experience the world...and see how people lived, how they dealt with issues, so that really sparked my curiosity in terms of the international dimension,” he says.

After graduating from the University of Michigan Law School, Schrage began work at the State Department Legal Adviser’s Office, which inspired his political career.

“This was at the time when the control of Congress switched for the first time in 40 years,” he says. “I saw it as an opportunity to get involved, make a difference in changing some of the institutions, taking policies into a new direction—young people could make a difference in that.”

CAREERS IN TRANSITION

For Davis, the move towards a career in political office began with a lost election.