Of all the world’s problems, the existential crises of Harvard Business School students must rank pretty low. But let me present one all the same. Last month, several business schools released the average compensation of their most recent graduating classes. HBS announced that its MBA class of 2005 earned, on average, $174,580, the most of any business school and roughly double the average for graduating MBAs across the US.

While my family and friends e-mailed me reports of this news with accompanying exclamation marks and smiley faces, I was not so sure what to make of it.

Two things immediately struck me. First, $174,580 is both a satisfyingly large number in itself and pregnant with the promise of even larger numbers to come. Second, it gives you a pretty clear idea of the market value of a Harvard MBA. It is, curiously enough, almost exactly the amount these two years at Harvard will have cost in tuition and living expenses for me and my family, which leads me to suspect some hidden economic hand at work.

The existential crisis, if you can call it that, comes when you consider that one of the great privileges of having a Harvard MBA is supposedly the ability to look at a first year salary of $174,580 with something like indifference.

Even from the rank pit of graduate school loans, you should be able to take that number, weigh it coldly against the kind of work it will require and decide whether that is really what you want. How easy is this in practice?

If, like me, your material appetites and short-term personal ambitions are yanking you in different directions, then late autumn in the second year of business school is a testing time. As the leaves fall, classmates who I have grown used to seeing turning up at classes with bed hair and the same fleece jacket day after day are suddenly parading around in dark suits with leather portfolios clutched under their arms. The campus swarms with representatives of the world’s great corporations fishing for recruits with some very tasty looking financial bait.

News of the big signings soon gets around. The leading private equity firms are handing out first year compensation packages of more than $400,000. The banks and consulting firms are on a feeding frenzy. Anyone with Chinese on their CV is in hot demand. Next to private equity, the most coveted sector appears to be real estate.

There are now a good number of people who know what they will be doing once they graduate in June. Some are delighted, others simply relieved. From those entering consulting you often hear the line: “I’ll do it for a couple of years and then I’ll be able to do what I really want to do.” From the private equity folks, you hear: “I’ll do it for 10 years and then retire.”

The pressure of the loans students have taken on to study at HBS seems to be driving many decisions. International students especially seem impelled to find a job in the US in order to repay large dollar debts. The sum of $174,580 sounds even more enticing when set against what they might earn in Argentina or France.

But what if the last thing you want to do is be sucked into a big corporation? What if you wake up with chills at the thought of becoming one of dozens of other MBAs pounding away on spreadsheets or hauling your suitcase through an airport on Sunday nights?

Fortunately, there are plenty of voices at Harvard urging students to heed these nagging voices and do something they know and enjoy rather than chasing the short-term pay cheque.

In his graduation day address last year, Jeff Immelt, the chief executive of General Electric, encouraged the class to look at what the majority of people were doing and run in the opposite direction.

Joe Lassiter, entrepreneurship professor, recommends picking a location first then trying to become part of what he calls “world class tribes”, groups of people in your chosen place who really know the business they are in. Over time you will gain experience and build relationships so that if you choose to start your own company or develop the one you are in, you will have most of the resources to hand.

A programme of Social Enterprise Fellowships, which allows students to spend their first year out of HBS working at high levels in non-profit organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or Save the Children, seems to be drawing a lot of interest. And the environmentalists on campus are a growing voice in both academic and student life.

Some students have joined one of the many international “treks” that take place every holiday – mixing tourism with meetings with local businesses – and found their ambitions and perspectives knocked sideways; and there are those who arrived at HBS funded by their Wall Street employer, only to return the money and pursue a different career.

All this uncertainty and re-evaluation is what can make business school such a stimulating place to pass a couple of years. But resisting the urge to grab wildly at one of the rich plums dangled before our eyes at this time of year requires some self-control.

When I graduated from university in England, people used to ask each other “do you have a job yet?” At HBS, the question has somehow escalated to “have you decided what to do with your life yet?”

Somehow a job is no longer a job. It is supposed to be your passion and your life, which is setting the bar pretty high even for a $400,000-a-year associate’s position with a global investment group.

I am still deciding what kind of business I am likely to find most rewarding and how I can tally that with the kind of life I would like to lead. It is an incredible luxury to have the time, resources and people around to think deeply about all of this and stare $174,580 in the eye and say “you don’t impress me”.

Philip Delves Broughton: Transformed, but into what exactly?

Philip Delves Broughton: It’s that back to school feeling

Philip Delves Broughton: A lesson in moral leadership

For earlier diaries go to www.ft.com/businesseducation