Reflections on a Year at Columbia

You're just starting out as a first-year in college. Sitting through Convocation, you remember this buzz in the air. You're all geared up — for the learning, the intellectual journey ahead. The dean delivers this speech about "asking big questions" and "following your curiosity." Weeks later, you find yourself already in action: coffee chats, sorority hazing, info sessions at J.P. Morgan, office hours, applying to clubs that reject more kids than the university, panicking over your first midterm, applying for summer internships/research, frat parties, asking friends to call you an Uber back 'cause you're too drunk…

From time to time, you experience statics of cognitive dissonance, asking yourself "What's the point of all this," and "Is this what I wanted?" But everyone else seems to be doing the same thing, so maybe that's what you're supposed to do anyway. That's how it works in college.

I just finished my first year at Columbia. For a while, I was convinced of that too. Out of curiosity, I once asked a friend why he studies so hard.

"I need a good grade in this class," he said.

"Why?"

"To keep my GPA up."

"What for?"

"So I can get into grad school."

"Why?"

"I'll have a better chance of getting the job I want."

"Which is?"

"IB, or hedge funds. Maybe VC."

"Why?"

"Because it pays a lot."

I pushed one last time, "So what?"

He just laughed, like the answer was so obvious.

It's no surprise, then, that one in three Columbia undergraduates ends up in consulting or finance. Columbia has long been a "feeder" school for firms like J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley — and that pipeline is only growing stronger. More than ever, campus life feels like a direct fast track to Wall Street. The word "feeder" evokes the image of a conveyor belt, with students moving steadily along, neatly packaged after four years of pursuing a degree that certifies they've acquired all the corporate essentials: access to an exclusive alumni network, glowing letters from Columbia professors, prestigious internships, and resumes polished to perfection.

All the while, Columbia claims to produce independent, original thinkers — leaders who will challenge the status quo. Yet reality feels ironic — most students follow remarkably similar, conventional paths. If Columbia isn't actually fostering the free thinkers it claims to, then what sets it apart? What gives Columbia — and the Ivy Leagues — their prestige?

According to the Gervais Principle, coined by Venkatesh Rao, every organization naturally sorts itself into three groups: the Sociopaths, the Clueless, and the Losers. Although Rao originally applied this idea to corporate life, viewing campus culture through this lens is just as revealing.

At the top are the Sociopaths — those who see how the system really works and either exploit it for their own benefit or build their own systems entirely. In the middle are the Clueless — people who genuinely believe in the myths and ideals of the system. They overperform, show extreme loyalty, and make themselves prone to manipulation, becoming willing tools for the institution and the Sociopaths. At the bottom are the Losers — those who understand the system is rigged. They don't buy into the myths but stay anyway, doing the bare minimum to collect whatever reward (a diploma, a paycheck) they need to get by. Hence, Losers aren't "losers" in the true sense — they simply recognize they've struck a bad bargain: they gain low rewards, so they exert low effort.

Likewise, the college Sociopaths recognize that school is just a means to an end. Many have already built their own systems outside Columbia — startups, personal brands — or at the very least, seized leadership roles on campus, not to serve academia or corporate pipelines, but to build platforms for their own agendas. Put more concisely, they seek careers, not jobs. The Clueless throw themselves into every opportunity — networking events, info sessions, Greek life, workshops — overworking themselves and deferring to the Sociopaths, convinced that success in school mirrors their potential for success in the real world. Losers coast where they can, doing the bare minimum to get out. But because they see through the game, they have potential to become Sociopaths later — if they choose to stop playing along and start bending the system to their advantage, or build their own.

In my experience, at an institution like Columbia, one finds proportionately fewer Losers and far more Clueless here than at an average school. The prestige of the Ivy League naturally attracts the Clueless — those who fully buy into the institutional narrative that a prestigious education equates a successful career. These institutions, in turn, have gotten very good at selecting the Clueless over the Losers — the applicants with perfect SAT scores, international accolades, 4.0 GPAs. Certain high school Sociopaths slip through admissions easily, standing out as extraordinary candidates — Olympic athletes, entrepreneurs, movie stars — who have already begun building systems of their own.

Naturally, at a school where the Clueless make up the majority, most students funnel into the same narrow set of career paths. The Clueless are exceptional at following the rules and grinding their way up established systems — which is why they often land stable, mid-level management roles at top firms. Hence, despite their cluelessness, they on average secure higher-paying positions than the Losers. True top leadership positions — CEOs, founders — however, are reserved for the Sociopaths.

The tragedy is not that the system exists. The tragedy is that so many brilliant, idealistic students arrive on campus full of questions, only to have their energy rerouted into perfecting a performance. By the time they graduate, many no longer even remember the questions that first brought them here. At Columbia, the conveyor belt hums along. Some students learn to ride it better than others. But a few might still remember that they were never meant to be cargo in the first place.