Harvard's Own Chemical Brother

Once Harvard Class of ’00, now Class of ’07. Gold-medal winner of the International Chemical Olympiad. New England Conservatory graduate, with professional potential as a double-bassist. Currently in classes with former students. Who is this mystery man?

None other than Justin A. McCarty, ’00-’07.

Eight years ago, McCarty was seemingly just another freshman plowing through college and uncertain of his future. Yet there was more to the story of this chemistry whiz kid unenthusiastically enrolled as a chemistry concentrator. He had just taken a year off after high school to pursue his newly found love of the double-bass, and little did he know it, but this move was going to completely shape the next eight years of his life.

“I had had a great year,” says McCarty of his time off, “and by the time I got to Harvard after that...rather than saying, ‘I’m at Harvard, I’m going to let all the music go now,’ I felt even more so that all I wanted to do was play bass.” Though he was a member of the Bach Society Orchestra and the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra he felt that music was “too much of an extra-curricular pursuit, which I didn’t want it to be. I wanted it to be my main focus.” His course load echoed that sentiment: a music theory class, a chamber music class, a symphonic music history core, and German—no chemistry to be found.

To the initial disappointment of his parents, McCarty took a leave of absence from Harvard after his first semester and enrolled in the prestigious New England Conservatory the following January. Studying the bass extensively, McCarty enjoyed his studio teachers and the stimulating environment. Still, he couldn’t escape the haunting shadow of his earlier high school chemistry days. Before even entering Harvard, his strong chemistry record was the talk of the department. Sharing a mutual love of music and chemistry, Justin quickly formed a relationship as a first-year with the then senior lecturer and freshmen adviser in the Chemistry department, Jim Davis (who retired a year and a half ago). The precociousness of the McCarty clan was not unknown to Davis, however, who also acted as a mentor to McCarty’s older brother, Logan. Logan attended Harvard College as a chemistry concentrator, and had gone on to TF Chem 5 and Chem 7 while a Chemistry graduate student at Harvard. Davis suggested to Justin that for part-time work in the summer, he tutor students privately in chemistry. After some positive feedback, Davis asked McCarty to jump onboard as a TF in his extension school general chemistry course, a course filled mostly with post-baccalaureate students who had majored in English or History and wanted to pursue a medical career. It went well, and during what would have been his senior year at Harvard, McCarty started TFing Chem 5 and 7, a job he held until last year.

For the last three years, McCarty pursued a freelance musical career while continuing to teach Chem 5 and 7, still trying to figure out in what direction he was going to be pulled. When he decided to go back to school, he started applying to a number of graduate music programs, all the while knowing that Harvard was still waiting in the wings. “There was a month there, somewhere in April or May, where I was like, ‘Okay, I [have to] decide what I’m going to do here. The music path or not?” McCarty says about last spring. Ultimately he decided that enrolling in a graduate music program would be narrowing his options too much, and opted to return to Harvard as a first-year and pursue a chemistry degree once again.

“I really like that I came back to Harvard on my own terms,” says McCarty. “My parents weren’t pushing me at all last year—the decision was completely my own—and I really think that made a difference to me.”

Now a member of the Class of 2007, McCarty has the same requirements as any of his peers. Although he does not live on campus, he is affiliated with Apley Court, and even has a proctor, a prospect that had concerned McCarty. “I was a little weirded out that my new proctor was going to be younger than me or something. Luckily, that’s not the case.” McCarty’s new courseload is no longer filled with music classes: Expos, Applied Math 21a, beginning Japanese and Chem 15. As he is now taking a Chemistry course one level higher than the two he was TFing just last year, he is taking classes with his former students, and even studies with them. Is it weird being that much older? He shrugs and states the often-preached maxim: “It’s better to learn in groups.”

So where will McCarty be in five years? Will he be sitting in the pit of the Philharmonic, or breaking atoms and formulating ground-breaking hypotheses in the world of chemistry? McCarty is unsure. “Right now, I’m still interested in a career in music. Though returning to Harvard isn’t the fastest way to get there...I’m just looking forward to getting a little more well-rounded of an experience.”

Though McCarty has eight years on his fellow freshmen, one class is still causing him grief—Expos. “I haven’t written a paper for a number of years now, and I’m sitting there like ‘Oh my God! I have to write a 5-page paper! Help!’” he says.