After I brought home a few less-than-wonderful report cards in ninth grade, my parents didn't ask me for more explanations. Instead, they packed my bags and shipped me off to Kiski, a boys-only boarding school located in Saltsburg, Pa., which is in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't the ideal choice for a 15-year-old boy, but without distractions and with some strict supervision from Headmaster Jack Pidgeon and the rest of the faculty, I paid attention in class and did my homework.

My grades reflected the new routine, and by the time 12th grade rolled around, it was time to consider what college I should attend. I figured that after college I would work at my family's business, a commercial laundry, so I never gave too much thought about what to study. Business classes made the most sense until Burt, one of my classmates, knocked on my dorm room door. He was panicked. His girlfriend, who lived 30 miles away, had written him a letter that mentioned her high school's senior prom but left out who would be her date. For the pre-Twitter, pre-Facebook, pre-texting, pre-cell phone generation, there was only one viable option for my friend to hold onto the first love of his life—a handwritten letter.

Faced with such a life-altering task, Burt turned to me. To this day, I'm not sure why he picked a budding business major for help. We pulled out some stationery and a pen, and the words followed. An hour or two later, his response was sealed in a stamped envelope. After a couple of days passed, he burst into my room again. This time he didn't bother to knock. He let me know that come spring he would be getting measured for a tuxedo. The happy ending resulted in more knocks at my door from some of my other classmates. And it made me reconsider what to study in college. Two years later, after nearly falling asleep in business statistics, I was reading Moby Dick (yes, I read it from beginning to end!) as I declared English as my major, and my career path as a writer had officially begun.

Two of this issue's feature stories are about alumni's career paths—Keith Lockhart's baton-toting journey to center stage with one of the world's most renowned orchestras (Maestro) and Herb Sendek dribbling his way courtside as head coach of one of the nation's top collegiate basketball programs (Point Person). Another feature is about undergraduate Nia Austin still looking for her ideal path, and perhaps—like me—making a choice, and helping her classmates make a choice, that none of them previously considered (Uncle Sam Wants Our Students).

Our cover story (Workout) is about career paths, too. The feature delves into Professor Denise Rousseau's organizational research that has led to a project intended to ensure a sense of fairness between employees and employers. It's not a story where the boy gets the girl, or the coach raises the trophy, or the maestro records a platinum record, but it may be—especially in these challenging economic times with high unemployment—the most dramatic story of all.

Robert Mendelson
  Executive Editor