The Best Part of Harvard

I am studying abroad in London this semester, and in so many ways, my life here is similar to my life at Harvard.

I am in a city with great restaurants, a storied past, and a fascinating culture.

I have class with bright, opinionated students from all over the world who teach me new facts and introduce me to novel perspectives almost every time they speak.

I take courses that inspire me to think harder and to question everything.

To be honest, there are many parts of Harvard I don’t miss.

I don’t miss the stress that I constantly feel and that constantly surrounds me at Harvard. I don’t miss the consistent battles with the administration. I don’t miss the social and extracurricular exclusion.

But there is something I miss, and I miss it a lot.

I miss my friends.

Unfortunately, though, when I reflect on my two years at Harvard to date, I realize that I have not spent enough time with my friends.

Too often, I fit them into a 30-minute meal during which I was distracted by whatever it was that I had before and after the meal. Too frequently, I spent time with my friends, only to be on my phone the entire time checking emails that just had to be answered. Too consistently, I didn’t spend time with them on a Friday or Saturday night because there was a party I wanted to attend. Too regularly, I buried myself in my work or my meetings, unable to see my friends between Monday and Friday.

What scares me most on a personal level is that I would not have realized my inability to prioritize the part of Harvard I care about most had I not studied abroad. I likely would not have recognized this failure until I was in a big city by myself after college, without my friends nearby and with few possibilities to see them.

What scares me most for our community is that when I listen to peers and watch people’s experiences, I see too many Harvard students who make the same mistakes I have made.

Harvard encourages us to commit fully to our work, to our activities, and to our future careers. And so, we treat friends as a second priority—as something that can be fit in around everything else we do. I hear many people say they’d love to make time for someone, but they just can’t because of work and other social commitments. Or that the person lives in the Quad, and the extra 25 minutes the commute entails needs to be committed to reading.

We have our entire lives to succeed, and we have our entire lives to work towards our careers.

The beauty of college, on the other hand, is that it’s the only four years of our lives in which we live within 15 minutes of all of our best friends. We also have no nine-to-five job to preoccupy our days. We can therefore decide how we spend our time, where we spend it, and with whom we spend it. This freedom means we can see our friends when we want to do so.

Maybe the things we learn in our time with friends cannot be assessed with a grade or placed on a resume, but they are important to our development as people. And as I’ve learned this semester, spending time with our friends is vital to our happiness.

When I spoke with another Harvard student who is studying abroad this semester, I asked her what she missed most about Harvard.

She said, “Maybe it’s just because yesterday was Sunday, but what I’ve missed most is Sunday brunch with my blockmates.”

Her answer resonated with me, and it made consider the moments I miss most from life at Harvard.

I miss J.P. Licks at 10 p.m. with my best friends more than anything else.

So, I am extending a challenge to the Harvard community. Let’s not wait until we’ve moved on from this place to realize how incredible Sunday brunch and J.P. Licks hangouts are.

Whatever your tradition is with your friends, whatever the moments you love most are, build your schedule around them for a change, instead of fitting those memories into the smallest time slots of your crazy weeks.

I know we will never regret having spent a couple fewer hours per week on our work and activities.

I do think we will regret not having spent more time with our friends.

James Piltch ’17 is a history and literature concentrator in Leverett House.