People Made of Smoke and Cities Made of Song

Regardless of where you came from or where you are going, the first thing you learn at Harvard University is that you don’t know anything.

Was this something you expected to read in The Crimson this early in the year? No. Probably not. But this is the only information you’ll really need, both here and in life. At the very least, it’s the most important thing I’ve learned.

Freshmen, transfers, everyone: I’m a first-year law student. I’m new here, too. And like you, I just learned that I don’t know anything. Again.

Let’s be clear here—I feel adrift not because I'm doing badly or don’t belong. Just like in college, at HLS you learn pretty quickly that you do, in fact, belong. Everybody else is smart, but hey, you’re smart too, and even if you ask a dumb question in your first class, it rapidly becomes clear that everybody else makes mistakes from time to time.

No, it’s just that change is hard, and comfort zones are fun precisely because they are comforting. You can do all the research you want and interview all the lawyers you know, but life is full of second-guessing nevertheless, because everything seems easy when you’re sketching out your life on paper. There’s nothing like rolling up your J. Crew sleeves and actually doing something—going to Harvard included—to make you question your life decisions.

In the last two weeks, I’ve found myself asking questions I thought I’d answered a long time ago, like “Why do I want to be a lawyer?” and “Why did I want to come back to Massachusetts?” Wasn't there plenty that I ardently disliked about New England when I left? Black ice? Sneezing constantly in the spring? Patriots fans?

We know the Patriots will be good and that the winter streets will make me slip. And yes, I do know why I want to be a lawyer, and I'm still confident that my reasons remain true. But as for me, Harvard leaves me uneasy, as any great school should. I'm worried. For the first time in four years, I'm not sure where I stand, how I can succeed, whether I'm even good or bad at all. Everything is in flux. As it should be.

Harvard is a positively terrifying thing to second-guess. As much as I dislike the idea of dreaming of Harvard “because it’s Harvard,” its unquestioned reputation makes it all the more unsettling when you start questioning it—as everybody who comes here inevitably does.

I did the whole “Harvard is amazing” thing too as a kid. Being a Chinese-American of reasonable means, the traditional pilgrimage to Cambridge was never even a question. I don't actually remember it, but as I write, I am wearing a Harvard hat that my parents presumably bought at the Coop more than 15 years ago. It would be cute if it weren’t so weird.

Ironically, I never ended up applying to the College. The problem was, my parents had taken toddler Winston to other universities too. Sitting on Stanford's front lawn one glorious California day, five-year-old Winston blithely informed my mother that I was going to go to school there. I spent the next 12 years working my tail off to make good on that promise, which is a lesson to all of you freshmen that you should never make vows you might not be able to keep. And despite all of that, I ended up here anyway.

But this time, I knew that I was coming here to do something new, to try something bold and exciting. I wasn’t going here because it was the expected thing to do. I wasn’t going here “because it’s Harvard.” This time around, part of the fun was not knowing exactly where I’d end up.

Some of the people that come to Harvard have never failed in their lives, never encountered a true academic difficulty, never not been the smartest person in the room. For those, this university teaches you that you still have so much you need to do. Luckily, it also teaches everyone that there is so much we can do. A great school teaches you to be comfortable with not knowing and confident in who you are—and it promises that things do in fact get better, if you’re willing to work at it. That’s why I’m not even that worried right now. It’s because I’ve been here before. And I know everybody here will do just fine.

So let me introduce myself properly this time around. My name is Winston Shi. I am a law student, and as another HLS first-year returning to Massachusetts from NorCal wrote many years ago, there are many moments when I am simply a mess. And that’s OK. "We are lost and we don't know which way we should go,” one of our old artists in residence once said. “But this is a very natural thing, a very healthy thing."

Once again, I meet the darkly glorious mixture of terror and excitement and awe that I felt the first day I arrived at Stanford, when I realized that I didn't know anything at all. I like that feeling. By now it’s second nature to me. It's why I've always sought to get out of my comfort zone, why I love traveling to places I've never seen, why I wanted to come here at all. I'm lost, and it's the best damn feeling in the world.

Winston Shi is a current first-year at Harvard Law School. His column appears on alternate Tuesdays.