Could you please introduce yourself?
"Hi, I am Clarissa Schott, I am 25 years old and graduated in 2021. I took the Philosophy and Economics tracks."
What did you do in your fifth semester?
"Due to COVID, there were no internships or study abroad opportunities (I had planned an internship abroad, partly in Singapore), instead I did a minor in entrepreneurship at the VU."
What are you currently doing, and where?
"I am currently doing my PhD at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. I am at the Institute for Ethics in Management, so I stayed somewhat close to Economics and Philosophy. My PhD deals with the climate crisis. To be more specific, I aim to translate long-term ethical considerations into organizational practice. Most companies only plan for the next five years, but in regard to climate change, goals and responsibilities (think for example of Net Zero 2050) stretch far beyond that. Climate considerations and goals are inherently ethical as we want to preserve nature, increase or at least sustain welfare of generations to come and so on and so forth (having a lot to do with intergenerational justice). I aim to translate these long-term ethical considerations into financial calculations and decision-making practices that can be used by organizations. I collect my empirical data in a large energy company that still operates a lot on fossil fuels, but is constantly increasing the renewables operations and aims to be net-zero by 2030. It is difficult to make people who have only thought about profitability for their whole life think about sustainability and the environment, but I am working on it! The idea for this topic originated in my second semester of PPE, when we learned about time discounting and how macroeconomics quantifies ethics to integrate it into macroeconomic models, see the Stern-Nordhaus debate."
What did you do between PPE and now?
"I did a management master's in Vienna, specialising in ethics, finance and sustainability. In the first year of my master’s, I continued working where I worked during PPE, in a startup called SUGARTRENDS, which is a sustainable e-commerce platform. In the second year of my master’s, I started working for the institute where I am now."
How did PPE affect your choice to be working where you are?
"PPE affected my path fundamentally, in many many ways. The exciting thing about PPE was that we were allowed to ask the really really ‘big’ questions, for example about climate change and social justice. I also learned a lot about the connection (or lack thereof in practice) between philosophy and economics. In PiP2, we read a paper on time discounting, and I found it very irritating and weird that it is a normal economic and business practice to discount the future. Well, and that irritation preserved, motivating me to question organizational practices of discounting in planning and instead driving climate action.
I wanted to work on that, so I did exactly that, in my bachelor’s thesis, in my master's and now in my PhD. I wrote my Bachelor's thesis on different views of rationality, which is considered very different in varying contexts (e.g. philosophy and economics). In my master’s thesis, I did a critical discourse analysis of how time discounting was talked about and done in COP26 and how this translated into public perception and organizational practice."
How does PPE come up in your daily life now? Are you working in an interdisciplinary field?
"Yes, I am, I stayed very close to PPE. Every once in a while I even go back to the readings of some of my philosophy and economics classes, and I sometimes use them for my classes, last semester for example some bits on institutional economics."
What was your favourite course in PPE?
"I think it was the first ethics course, because it made me fall in love with ethics. I loved the readings, the things we talked about and that we would learn a whole new theory each week, which always seemed quite reasonable and then debating the critique and problematic implications the next.
Also, Akshath was a really really great teacher and seminar leader for that course."
Are there any tips for life after PPE that you would like to share?
"Reach out to the people from your studies, and keep track of where they are going! The same applies to people who graduated before you, it is nice to get some ideas of the different things you can do with PPE and tips on how to apply for a master's degree. Also, reach out to professors, for tips, ideas, inspirations and potentially letters of recommendation!"
How did the network of PPE contribute to your personal and professional growth?
"Personally, I met a lot of great people, some of whom I am still close friends with. Professionally, it is inspiring to see people go into so many directions. One of my peers is working for the OECD, another one is working at the UN. I know little people from PPE that say “ugh, it's just a job”. I love my job and a lot of my peers are also very passionate about what they do, and I know that this is not the norm for other study programmes."
Is there something exciting that you would like to share about your life outside of your work?
"Vienna has a longstanding tradition of art and culture being publically accessible, and oftentimes linked to activist and political work. I love exploring these parts of Vienna, and more importantly being part of activist groups and initiatives. There are always quite a few activist exhibitions, performances and demonstrations. I believe it is extremely important, especially right now, to stand up against the far right and be(come) politically active. So I try to do that a lot, beyond integrating such theories and approaches (for example queer-feminist theories)in my research."