Lessons from the Core
When I was a senior in high school, everyone told me that at Harvard—a premier university with countless opportunities—I could do anything I wanted. And within the first month of my freshman year, I had plans to maintain an avid social life, to join a dozen clubs, to hear every interesting speaker who came to campus and to graduate with honors and a Masters. (Thanks to my advanced standing, I was ahead of the game!) I saw Harvard’s countless opportunities as a challenge for me to take advantage of them all.
It took the Core to teach me otherwise.
My first Harvard midterm, in Literature and Arts B-21, “Images of Alexander the Great,” and the due date of my first Harvard paper, for Moral Reasoning 22, “Justice,” fell on the same day. I had spent the bulk of the weekend hanging out late with new first-year friends, and I had left the academics for Sunday night. When at 4 a.m., after eight hours of paper writing, my head finally hit the pillow, I had a whole schedule for Monday morning planned out in my mind. I would wake at 8 a.m. to read over and edit my paper on the moral repercussions of dwarf tossing. I’d bring my notes and slides to Annenberg for some studying over breakfast. I would walk leisurely over to Sackler Hall for the midterm at noon. Then I would return to my room to add footnotes and a bibliography to the paper—aptly titled “Dwarf Tossing Should Be Illegal” (thankfully, expos had already taught me the importance of a catchy title)—so that I could hand it in before four.
Unfortunately, I woke up at 1:02 p.m.—I had slept through my entire first midterm at Harvard. Initially, I blamed everything from my new alarm clock to my roommate to my course selection—how could I have thought I could handle Justice and Alexander in the same semester? Finally I blamed myself. I couldn’t expect to leave both assignments to the last minute and still get them done.
A few weeks later, my parents visited Harvard for freshman parents’ weekend. My mom, a big fan of pointless panels, attended one that was meant to discourage parents from expecting their students to get straight A’s. As she left on Sunday she recounted what she had learned and said: “Judd, you don’t have to get an A. But please, show up for the exam.”
I haven’t missed any other exams, but I will not walk away from Harvard feeling like I’ve accomplished everything I set out to do. Even now, as the realization that I am leaving Harvard in a few weeks sets in, I want to join the juggling club; give campus tours; and get a job in the library, tutoring or as a research assistant. I can’t shake this desperate feeling of “coulda, woulda, shoulda… Oh no, I slept through it all!”
When I came to college, I knew I wanted to be a good student, I wanted to learn, I wanted to get the most out of Harvard. I also thought I could measure my success in these areas with the marks on my transcript. But I didn’t realize at the time that maintaining a serious interest in my GPA would require giving up interests in other activities and pursuits. Consequently, I spent the last three and a half years sacrificing sleep and socializing to turn problem sets and response papers into check-plusses rather than checks. I have pulled countless all-nighters, pumping myself full of caffeine (mostly in the form of Diet Coke) to finish papers by their deadlines when I could have easily taken a third of a grade penalty to get a good night’s sleep. I spent weekend nights at my desk that I should have spent at bars or parties, relaxing and having fun. And after four years of promises to myself, I have never successfully made exercise part of my daily, weekly (or monthly) schedules, opting to hit the books instead of hitting the weights. When I returned home the summer after sophomore year, which I had found significantly more stressful than my stint as a freshman, my doctor told me that I had the cholesterol level of a man twice my age. I blamed a HUDS diet that was heavy on french fries, but equally culpable were the stress and sedentary lifestyle that my academics had required.
It wasn’t only academics that required sacrifices. Before I realized that being able to do anything did not mean being able to do everything, I became an editor for the Demon, joined the Crimson staff, became an ECHO counselor, rushed a fraternity, joined my IM basketball team and started a club to make movies with my entryway-mates. But by sophomore year I learned that like rolling balls of snow, extracurricular activities at Harvard grow until they consume you. I watched junior year as my roommate, Rohit Chopra ’04, stopped going to class and lost 22 pounds during the eleven-day campaign for undergraduate council president, and then I watched as he spent 12 months exhausted from the job. And as I took on more leadership responsibilities at the Crimson, my editorship turned into a 40-hour-a-week job. Being an Editorial Chair of the Crimson was an incredibly meaningful experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything. But what I wouldn’t let myself see when I signed up for the job was that it required trading nearly everything else for it.
I would like to convince myself that all of my choices were the right ones. After all, in the fall of 2002, Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby told incoming first-year students: “You are here to work, and your business here is to learn.” Next year, I’m going to graduate school, a path my grades and my Crimson leadership experience no doubt made possible. And as seniors enter the competitive market for jobs and other post-graduate opportunities, no one denies that a high GPA is an advantage. In the end, my path has had benefits and I’m on the whole happy with my choices. If I had to do it again, I’d like to believe that I would socialize more and sleep more, but I know that for the most part, I’d probably do it basically the same.
But the doubts won’t subside. A few weeks before Kirby encouraged them to work, the same first-year students received a letter from then Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 titled: “Slow Down: Getting More out of Harvard by Doing Less.” Part of me wishes I had slowed down, relaxed, or taken other paths. In high school, I had dreams of playing Division I basketball. Height and talent might have been limiting factors, but so was the devotion to other pursuits—academic and extracurricular—that took time away from practicing my jump shot. They also took time away from meaningful interaction with my fellow students. I know that in June my saddest moments will be saying goodbye to the people with whom I would have liked to spend more nights hanging out, catching up and becoming better friends.
Even with only a few weeks left before commencement, I have trouble admitting that some Harvard opportunities are still out of reach. But the same way that I couldn’t expect to leave both my Justice paper and Alexander midterm to the last minute, college for me could not be both Animal House and Dean’s list. It is certainly bittersweet to realize that for everything I’ve done, there are things I couldn’t do, but it is the lesson that the core taught me in October of freshman year and that I’ve learned again and again since. The best thing about Harvard is that with so many opportunities available, you can do anything. The most difficult thing about Harvard is that you have to choose.
Judd B. Kessler ’04 is the former Editorial Chair of the Crimson. Don’t worry, his cholesterol levels have returned to normal. He would like to thank his girlfriend, Alice O. Wong ’04, for help in writing this piece. She suggests that he start choosing her over everything else.