What does a French philosopher have to teach us about management consulting?
You answered every question perfectly. Whether it’s a case interview for McKinsey, a technical for Goldman Sachs, or a group interview for the Claremont Marketing Group, you nailed it. But there’s one question you forgot to answer: why do you want to do it in the first place?
Twenty-first-century French philosopher and literary critic René Girard attained widespread recognition for his philosophical anthropology, but he is best known for his pioneering work on mimesis. This phenomenon refers to the human tendency to imitate the desires and behaviors of others, often unconsciously. Mimesis generates escalating rivalries grounded in achieving the same goals. Though deeply human and sometimes beneficial, mimesis can have corrosive effects on communities.
Girard’s theory of mimesis offers a helpful model for understanding students' behavior at institutions like Claremont McKenna College. Above all, mimesis fuels the relentless freshmen frenzy for club memberships, lures unsuspecting sophomores into consulting and finance, compels juniors to sign two-year contracts, and drives seniors to champion its perpetual cycle. In many ways, peer-to-peer mimetic influence eclipses even the most authoritative pressures from career services or scholar community advisors. Unchecked mimetic desire corrodes our souls and our tight-knit campus culture.
For elite liberal arts students, the effects of mimetic desire begin well before stepping on campus. Building on a foundation of high school achievement, ambitious students arrive at college with an ingrained drive to excel.
But college is the first place many elite students face formidable competition. While designations like “valedictorian” and “National Merit Scholar” may have been impressive in high school, they are now par for the course. New accolades replace the old. Merit scholarships like “McKenna,” “Seaver,” and, “Wagener” establish a hierarchy before students even arrive on campus. Other post-arrival titles like “First Year Class President,” “PPE major,” and “Robert Day Scholar” further stratify the class.
But at what cost? In this competitive environment, students—for no genuine fault of their own—eagerly accept the next "shiny object" to pursue: an overly selective school club, a prestigious fellowship, an elite internship, or a resume-worthy leadership role. There’s something for everyone. But in this merciless pursuit of external validation, two essential things are sacrificed: authenticity and community. It’s a sacrifice that’s easy to identify: first and second-years are more concerned about posting self-congratulatory LinkedIn job updates than their classes.
Don’t be mistaken; I appreciate the well-crafted, hard-earned LinkedIn post. But is the LinkedIn post an expression of gratitude? Or is it merely a signal to our mimetic peers that I, and not you, have achieved some goal? At a small campus like ours, a comparative environment poisons the well. Confidence erodes, friendships falter, and the knots of the tight-knit community loosen.
To avoid being self-righteous, let me clarify: this is neither an invective against management consulting nor a plea to avoid investment banking. I didn’t initially, and I’m likely better off for it. However, it is a call to ask ourselves the hard questions now. Why am I doing what I am doing? Is it for myself or for it to be seen? If you ask yourself these questions and don’t have compelling answers, you probably should reconsider your first principles. But don’t just take my word for it. Talk to almost any alumni, and they’ll tell you the exact same thing.
To some extent, we all have to put up with mimetic desire. In many cases, too, it pays to go with the flow and trust the wisdom of crowds. After all, achieving high-end post-graduate opportunities is a good goal. That said, with offers in hand, many students may not realize how far they’ve strayed from who they once were.
Upperclassmen's behavior shapes the desires of the underclassmen. After all, what the elders think of the young seems like the most important thing in the world. It’s a mimetic feature that compels each of us to excel. But when you ask seniors how they feel now, they often say they cared too much about vapid campus accolades as a first-year. After all, the only things that seem to matter in retrospect are each other and genuine learning.
If Girard is correct, and we’re stuck with mimesis (at least for now), we must make the most of it. Our community is small. Small enough that each individual has an outsized opportunity to set the tone for our culture. Mimetic theory states that how you act shapes how others behave. This is true for our friends, classes, clubs, and beyond. Therefore, asking yourself the hard questions will likely yield thoughtful results. But past that, it might inspire others to do the same.
We should seek out things that matter to us. Leveraged buyouts might matter to our friends, but that does not necessarily mean they matter to us. That’s something that we have to figure out for ourselves. That only happens when we ask ourselves the hard questions now, before staring down the barrel of two-year rotational analyst programs.
In many ways, the advantage college affords us is to try numerous things throughout our four years. For most of us, it takes most of those four to figure out what our passions might be. College enables exploring different pursuits with authenticity and an openness to being wrong. Mimetic desire detracts from this. It compels us to imitate others inauthentically and rewards rivalry. This doesn’t mean it’s right to be contrarian for contrarian’s sake. But we should be aware of the effects we have on each other and be careful not to let mimesis ruin our community.