Let’s say Tess goes to an Ivy League school and wants to make an impact through work in education. She does Teach for America and teaches underprivileged kids in the US for a few years, and gradually rises within the schools she works at until she is an administrator and can allocate resources for an entire district. Because she’s very good at it and deeply cares about her work, she ends up making an enormous impact with her career, transforming a bad public school system into a great one, and substantially positively affecting the lives of thousands of kids per year.
This career seems good ex post. It turned out well! But unfortunately forecasting is hard, especially about the future. The relevant question for Tess at age 21 is whether, in expectation, doing TfA is the best use of her time. And the answer is probably no—most TfA graduates achieve very little. In your story she got lucky—but 80k cannot advise ‘be lucky’ as a career strategy!
This career seems good ex post. It turned out well! But unfortunately forecasting is hard, especially about the future. The relevant question for Tess at age 21 is whether, in expectation, doing TfA is the best use of her time. And the answer is probably no—most TfA graduates achieve very little. In your story she got lucky—but 80k cannot advise ‘be lucky’ as a career strategy!