LOS ANGELES -- Anxious students will often ask me what they should ideally aspire to be when they grow up.

First I tell them I will let them know once I myself have grown up!.

But their question is, of course, no joking matter: Young people, not yet beaten down, often search for ideal answers even amid the very pressing practicalities of their life -- from completing countless graduate or law school applications to the inescapable grind of studying for the GREs or LSATs or GMATs while dealing with (or ending) nascent or evolving social and personal relationships.