Every year, heaps of students enroll in the Intermediate Macroeconomics course at Barnard or Columbia. A prerequisite for the Economics major, hundreds of IB analyst-hopefuls try their best to excel at applying made-up theories on made-up scenarios. Despite his cynicism towards the application of macroeconomics in the real world, Luke Engforwerk, CC ’27, has found that a certain premise taught in class hits too close to home.
One day, Engforwerk walked into class and saw the following written on the board:
“The longer you stay unemployed, the harder it is to get a job.
If you’re unemployed, it’s harder to get a job.”
“Okay, ouch,” thought Engforwerk, who has struggled to find summer employment the past two years sans a gig he was nepo’ed into: pulling weeds in Grandma Engforwerk’s garden. “The internships I’m looking at already want five years of experience. And I’ve missed out on two potential summer internships, plus the past six semesters. So, if I’m doing the math right, I have like negative eight years of experience. It’s going to take me forever to catch up.”
Ever the curious student, however, Engforwerk found the lecture quite interesting, eagerly writing notes down throughout class. “It’s quite demoralizing though,” Engforwerk told The Fed. “I already have to bear seeing these frat guys who are never in class announce their prestigious internship on LinkedIn. I don’t need my professors to also rub it in my face. Plus, this guy got his PhD right after college… what the hell does he know about finding a real job?”
Richie Bigbux, CC ’29, says he enrolled in the course to not only increase his chances of getting recruited for IB, but to also reconnect with his family roots.
“My maternal grandfather worked for Goldman before he dropped dead from a heart attack in the office,” Bigbux recalled. “My father works for JP Morgan, but I haven’t seen him in almost six and a half months.”
Bigbux clarified that his father is not dead nor missing, but has been permanently residing in JP Morgan’s new office building at 270 Park Avenue. On late nights and weekends, Bigbux’s 60-year-old dad chooses to lavish in the building’s new amenities by flirting with young women at Morgan’s Irish Pub, instead of going home to his family. Bigbux told The Fed that his father does occasionally post an AI-generated LinkedIn update about self-marketing or having empathy towards corporations to let his wife and kids know he is okay.
“I’m taking Intermediate Macro because it’s what my father would want,” Bigbux continued, tears prickling at the corner of his eyes. “Maybe if I get the summer analyst position in the Private Wealth Management division, I can finally have the opportunity to connect with him, though he is notorious for refusing to coffee chat with new hires,” he concluded sadly.
Timberleigh Beak, BC ’28, who lost her father to cancer earlier this month, states that rather than taking a semester off to grieve, she has enrolled in Intermediate Macroeconomics, Corporate Finance, Accounting and Finance, and Money and Banking for the Fall.
“I had to think more practically and put my family on the backburner,” Beak explained. “In a fast-paced career like investment banking, I need to prioritize what really matters: increasing shareholder value and getting an offer next summer.”
