Crimson Leader to Speak About Finding a Passion and Following It

Kate L. Rakoczy ’04 describes the experience of preparing for her speech today much in the same way as she describes her experience as a top editor of The Crimson—immensely challenging but unparalleled in its satisfaction.

It’s fitting then that The Crimson provides the fodder for the English Oration she will deliver today as one of three student speakers at Commencement Exercises.

Rakoczy says her speech is about discovering what you are passionate about and pursing it, come what may.

“Life is about finding what you love and making sacrifices for it,” Rakoczy says. “This is something that we should be trying to do for the rest of our lives.”

UNEXPECTED LEADER

Rakoczy’s road toward personal discovery and Harvard began in Staten Island, NY where she was born and raised.

Rakoczy enjoyed the sweeping New York skyline as she took the ferry daily to Manhattan, where she attended Stuyvesant High School.

While Rakoczy says her primary extracurricular commitments in high school were basketball and soccer, she says that she always wished she had written for her high school newspaper.

When Rakoczy got to Harvard she joined the junior varsity soccer team before picking up The Crimson comp mid-semester.

“I did JV soccer my freshman fall, and when that was over I kind of realized that I didn’t know how to make friends and socialize outside of teams, so I was looking for a new activity,” Rakoczy says. “I just went into [The Crimson] looking for something to do with myself. I wasn’t looking for a 60- hour-per-week commitment or anything like that.”

But what Rakoczy eventually found was exactly that. As a reporter, she covered everything from Harvard’s presidential search to former professor Cornel R. West’s flap with University President Lawrence H. Summers.

After three years as one of The Crimson’s most prolific writers—at latest count her byline has appeared 136 times—Rakoczy was tapped to lead The Crimson’s news operations as its associate managing editor.

The job brought the 60-hour weeks as well as a new appreciation of the Cambridge sunrise—she wrote in The Crimson yesterday that 5 a.m. is her favorite time of day.

While Rakoczy admits that the job was often incredibly frustrating, she says that the benefits “absolutely” outweighed the negatives.

“On top of the writing and reporting, managing a staff of people is mind-boggling because people act in a way you don’t expect,” Rakoczy says. “But it is ten times more rewarding, too.”

Rakoczy’s peers on The Crimson all agree that the passion Rakoczy speaks about today was self-evident.

“She has brought unparalleled enthusiasm to The Crimson, and I have no doubt that this same dedication and commitment to excellence will be reflected in her oration,” says former Crimson Editorial Chair Ronaldo Rauseo-Ricupero ’04.

Even after essentially losing her friend for a year, roommate Carrie R. Bierman ’04 understands that Rakoczy was only following her own advice.

“I feel that she is such a perfect example of somebody who spent their time here doing something she loves,” Bierman says.

While The Crimson was her chief amour, Rakoczy had other loves as well.

Rakoczy says that one of her most rewarding experiences was with the Boston Refugees Youth Enrichment Program (BRYE), an umbrella organization for various tutoring and mentoring activities.

For the last several years Rakoczy has worked with a young Vietnamese girl from Dorchester, Mass.,—helping her with her homework and just being there for her as a friend.

“It takes you outside of your own problems in your life,” Rakoczy says. “I learned at least as much from her as she could have learned from me.”

In the academic arena, Rakoczy earned a degree in Social Studies, writing her thesis on the different approaches to reforming the American media.

Rakoczy says that her passion for her extracurricular pursuits forced her to make sacrifices in her studies. And she acknowledges that these sacrifices had their drawbacks.

“I don’t think I put as much into it as I should have,” Rakoczy says. “[Social Studies] is a very rewarding concentration if you really put into it what you need to.”

SPEAKING FOR A CLASS

While Rakoczy may have been unknowingly cultivating the theme for her English Oration for the last four years, she says she never anticipated having the honor of speaking at commencement.

“I wrote my speech on the morning of the deadline,” Rakoczy says. “I heard the other speeches and it was really a surprise for me that they picked mine.”

The students underwent two auditions where they had to perform their speech in front of the Commencement Parts Committee—the committee charged with selecting the commencement day speakers.

Even Rakoczy’s closest friends didn’t know she had applied until she was already in the finals. Bierman calls the understatedness of her bid “typical Kate style.”

While Rakoczy says she is nervous, she is confident that she is well-prepared, having rehearsed the speech—which she will deliver from memory—extensively over the past several weeks.

“I don’t know that I have ever spoken in front of 30 people, let alone 32,000,” Rakoczy quips.

Following graduation, Rakoczy plans to work for the summer but also get the chance to make up for lost time with Bierman and other friends.

Then it is off to Cairo, Egypt, where she has a teaching internship at the American International School.

Rakoczy says she is unsure of what she wants to do after her internship, but that she is interested in politics and public policy and may go to law school.

She has not, however, entirely ruled out journalism as a career.

“I love being in a newsroom, and it’s easy to think you could do that for the rest of your life, but I am not sure that the life of a reporter is one that I am cut out for,” Rakoczy says.

—Staff writer Evan M. Vittor can be reached at evittor@fas.harvard.edu.