Living With Success

Disclaimer: It's not 'cool' to gush about anything anymore, especially Harvard. Maybe we're all just plain scared of appearing vain, and so don't talk it up. More probably, we just want to fit in, and so never act so happy to be here that it seems we don't belong.

Now, since I'm graduating, and so on the verge of not belonging anymore, this editorial might gush a little about the place. Please bear with me. If you are a parent, then gushing is in order. If you are a classmate, try to understand that I was a non-gusher before--in the space of two weeks--35 job interviewers asked me why I liked Harvard. Here's what I came up with for their benefit.

An approach to life believe is very useful comes in the form of the admonishment, "Don't reinvent the wheel." Most often we use the analogy to remind us to ask for advice from someone who knows something about a problem that we're facing. Maybe, we can't get a window screen back onto its hinges on the window. After cutting our hands and wondering why someone hasn't come up with a better screen, we ask a roommate who lived in the room before us how to do it.

The same things happens with the first page of the Moral Reasoning paper the still has not sullied the blank computer screen. We just ask someone who's successfully written something similar before hot to do it.

While we often use the wheel analogy to solve minor problems, it is even more useful to help us achieve major successes. If we can find someone who has achieved the goal to which we aspire, then we can learn what the qualities are that made them successful.

In this context, the best thing about Harvard is that there are so many people who have done so well. There is such a large-pool of successful individuals from whom to learn.

Their successes are often product of general qualities, like hard work and dedication. Or they are based on specific skills--the way to hit a ball or write a story.

It is never enough just to read a book about what it takes to be a successful sports person or a great artist, A book is a fine introduction, but the knowledge on which action may be taken is learned viscerally.

At Harvard, we get to live with people who have achieved (or have faked achievement, which is a success in and of itself). We have observed the qualities that have made others successes.

We know, just by experience, the standards that have to be met for success. You can read how to be a winner, but you'll find it much easier to be a winner yourself when you've been around someone who knows how to win.

I think that we underestimate this benefit of our stay here because most of our learning is not conscious. Very few of us try to pick up the qualities that made some achiever achieve. We're too proud.

Nevertheless, most people do change significantly in the four years they've been here. For good or bad, we are molded or built by the people around us, and for a certain class of achievement, Harvard is a very good Geppetto.

But the College is not perfect. the student body is not disproportionately strong over the whole spectrum of achievement, and for an obvious reason--Harvard admits us based on certain criteria. It is only when judged by these standards that we are particularly strong.

The most notable omissions to the admission standards are certain moral qualities that cannot be measured. For some, this is a powerful indictment both of Harvard's admission standards and of our educations.

My own view is that we came to Harvard to gain knowledge and to learn to achieve at a high level. Everything else we needed to know...we learned in kindergarten.

Gavin M. Abrams '94 is an economics concentrator living in Lowell House.