Freshman Film Time Capsule Video To Revisit in 2013

Sitting together in their Hollis double at three a.m. one morning last semester, roommates Smitha Ramakrishna ’13 and Nicole Paulet Piedra ’13 lamented the quickly approaching end of their freshman year.

Memories of writing letters to their future selves in grade school and scenes from the 2009 movie “Knowing” inspired the two to commemorate the past year with a time capsule­ with a 21st century twist.

After talking with their proctor, W. Hugo Van Vuuren ’07, a SEAS fellow who works at the Idea Translation Lab at Harvard, the two decided to “embrace the digital age and create a digital time capsule,” Ramakrishna said.

With the help of their friend Scott J. Yim ’13, the pair filmed over 50 freshmen speaking candidly to their future selves about friends, Annenberg food, bad movies, extracurriculars, and potential concentrations over the past three weekends.

The videos will be revisited just before Commencement 2013, Ramakrishna said.

Questions ran the gamut from “What music do you like?” to “What’s your greatest fear?” and “What do you hope to do with your future?”

“In the end it was very improvised, more like a conversation,” Paulet Piedra said.

Some of the freshman filmed even sang and danced, Ramakrishna said, though she added that many responses were more serious in tone.

“It’s a transitional time, you’re wrapping things up as a first year student, realizing this does go by very quickly,” said Director for Freshman Programming Katherine W. Steele, whose office provided funding, support, and publicity for the project. “Part of that is life here is so frantic, and when you take a step back and think about what really matters about your college experience, I could see how it could quickly become emotional.”

Ramakrishna said if more students wish to participate in the digital time capsule, she and her roommate may run additional filming sessions.

Though the pair have not decided how they will unveil the footage senior year, they said the videos will probably be uploaded to a website or distributed in CD form during senior week at a premiere event.

While waiting for his interview, Jose Arturo Villanueva ’13 mentioned that he saw many students remind their future selves to take nothing for granted.

“I hope to look back and smile and then say to myself, ‘look, young Arturo was right,’ and be satisfied and just take it well,” he said.

—Staff writer Julie R. Barzilay can be reached at jbarzilay13@college.harvard.edu.