It is seen in both “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan” by Ethan Watters and “Biographies of Hegemony” by Karen Ho, that marketing techniques have transformed norms of a culture or society. In these works, it is described how different industries disrupt the former beliefs and ideas held by a culture, changing their explanatory model; ultimately disturbing the groups culture as as a whole. An explanatory model can be defined as how a culture or society views, defines and understands a concept and the ideas around it. For these beliefs to be altered, these models must first be introduced to a stronger, more forceful campaign. Watters’ work describes the efforts of the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKiline to sell its drug, Paxil, in…show more content… Do these students really know who they are and what they actually want? The shift in culture created by Wall Street, has influenced students to market themselves rather than have a concept of the self. The true conception of the self relies on knowing what one truly stands for. The marketing of oneself is strongly present in the elite campus society because of how Wall Street lays out all that they look for in an employee, giving students the idea of how to morph themselves into a suitable candidate. The recruitment process leaves Princeton and Harvard students the map to a successful and “perfect life,” eliminating the self-awareness they once had. This explanatory model of smartness and Wall Street professions has a negative impact of how we chose our lifestyle. In Ho’s work it states, “We should not let out type-A drive for success, money, or power or our fear of ending up outside the realm of ‘acceptable’ Princeton accomplishments dictate what we do with our lives” (181). In other words, it is described that the ideal career for Princeton graduates is based off of what the school would deem “acceptable.” Students should veer from the investment banking path if it was never their true calling in life, to allow their conception of the self to shine through. The model explaining the “culture of smartness” gives elite universities and their students the ideal lifestyle, even though it might not be the lifestyle intended for that person. We can analyze this through Watters’ work stating how executives of drug companies “saw themselves as acting with the best of intentions, motivated by the belief that the drugs represented the proud march of scientific progress around the world” (527). This can be compared to the morals of Wall Street recruiters in that they are not just in search of individuals that will better their company with their “smartness,” but also benefit the lives of the