I don’t even drink coffee.

A coffee chat, for those unaware, is a conversation where two strangers pretend to care about
each other’s lives for fifteen to thirty minutes. As part of the extensive and ridiculous finance
club recruitment process, each applicant is “encouraged,” so really required if you want to get
an interview, to sign up for one with a senior member of the club.

Every single chat follows the same script, with both participants half-heartedly introducing
themselves, talking about how the club is the best organization ever created, and then a Q&A
where the applicant asks the same fifteen generic questions that were already answered in the
information session a week prior. The whole situation possesses an extremely Kafkaesque level
of absurdity. I mean, let’s be real. Neither of us wants to be here, very rarely is any valuable
information gained, and why in the world are we pretending that these conversations can
determine anything other than whether or not I can fake having my whole life put together at
the age of eighteen.

At this point, I think I can honestly say that the process of trying to get into one finance club
has been more stressful than the actual coursework at this institution (though I fear this will
most definitely change as midterms start approaching). Additionally, every information session,
application essay, and interview is giving me pseudo-PTSD to the dark, scary place that was the
college admissions cycle, except this time instead of competing against the general population,
I’m now competing against every other over-achieving, hyper-involved, and ultra-competitive
student here.

However, at the end of day, I have to accept my own complicity in this. I’ve had four coffee
chats this week alone, and I will likely have more to come. Even though I can admit that I think
the whole process is quite frankly ridiculous, it doesn’t change the fact that I want to be in one
of these clubs. So, I will keep on asking my rehearsed questions, updating my LinkedIn, and
faking confidence, because, ultimately, a chance at any pre-professional opportunity is worth
buying a fifth overpriced tea at Joe Coffee.

Joe Coffee via Bwog Archives