Getting the Most From Your Time At Harvard

Just a few weeks ago you sat at your high school graduation and heard some minor celebrity (or, if you were home schooled, your Uncle Ed) say how important it was to make the most of your potential. Local celebrity that you probably were, you may have even given that speech yourself. It's good advice, and you will find it repeated in these pages. See the museums, try out extracurriculars, look hard for classes you'll really like and do well in them during your first year at Harvard. But Harvard students are good listeners, so I won't bore you again with your own miraculous academic opportunity. I'll spend my soapbox time on a more important subject. You may not know it, but your world is about to become three-dimensional, and you better be ready.

High school is two-dimensional, with just one path. Everyone who's anyone takes mostly the same classes, the same tests, does the same few marquee extracurriculars. For you, probably, there was only one goal: a top-ranked school. With admission to Harvard, you won this race. But being so good in a two-dimensional world can have a profound affect on your self-image. There was no need to choose what activities you would be involved in, because you could do all of them. No need to decide which offices you wanted to run for--the president, every time. No need, in effect, to decide what you wanted, because you knew what Harvard or Stanford or Princeton wanted, and it was within your capabilities. You may not have had to go through the painful process of deciding into what clique you fit. You had your own: the Best, respected by all. Since this section is titled "My First Year," I should state the obvious and say this was my experience in high school.

But, like me, you are about to meet 1,600 other people who were exactly the same way in high school. No more will you be able to define yourself simply as being a person who is more successful than everybody else. Some people, of course, will try. The first Undergraduate Council elections of the year will remind you of your high school student council--lots of candidates, slogans and earnest campaigning. People you know will plunge into big, hierarchical organizations like the IOP and The Crimson because they desperately need someone to give them a structure for their ambition. (Those lucky souls that join The Crimson will find that great journalism is fulfilling in its own right. Those who go to the IOP will find, well, each other.) But most of your class will plunge into a world with dozens of concentrations, bajillions of classes, and hundreds of extracurriculars--a world where there is no right path, only personal preference. Here's where you come in.

You will begin making choices about academics and extracurriculars--what sounds interesting? What would I like to try? Others have told you about academics and extracurriculars, in fact, Harvard will pretend like these are the only two areas of your life with which you should concern yourself. My advice to you is to seek another dimension of life at Harvard: other people. Unlike the course guide and the extracurricular fair, after orientation week you will never be presented with a chance to meet people and choose friends. I guess I thought there would be another chance, and so hung out only with people I knew from back home at the beginning of my first year. I'll meet people in lectures. Sorry in Sanders. Sections, then. Maybe, but during your first year you're still too busy actually doing the reading to socialize with people in your sections. And so I missed out, preoccupied with my studies and extracurriculars--and believe me, there will be no shortage of work from those. It wasn't until the second half of my first year that I realized you have to try to make friends and meet people at Harvard, the chances don't come to you.

But you need these people, desperately need them, because you can't be simply the Best any longer. With them at the Kong at 2:30 a.m., at the Grille on a Friday night or over a neglected math problem set in your room, you'll begin figuring out where you really fit in a three-dimensional world. It will be amazing to see l,600 merit scholars fan out, like light through a prism, into a class with jocks, nerds, class clowns, artists and every other teenage demographic. Some poor souls will even join the Harvard Lampoon; a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine. In order to find where you want to go in this fanning-out, you will need people to argue and laugh with. And the best time to find these people will be your first year.

Don't worry that you won't find any friends, because everyone who tries, does. And this "trying" doesn't mean you need to harass everyone who smiles at you--just remember that if there's a choice between silence and saying hello in the friendly first weeks of your first year, say hello. Except to people in Cabot Library. They sometimes bite when disturbed. And, if you're determined--like I was--to make the very most out of your Golden Ticket, remember that you haven't made the most out of Harvard University if you come out book-smarter but otherwise unchanged. Your friends will help you add another dimension to your potential. You will be capable of happiness as well as greatness.

So make the most of your potential. Like Uncle Ed told you, it's what you're here to do.

David A. Fahrenthold '00 is associate managing editor of The Crimson.