Most Likely to Be President: Arjun Akwei
The wide, stone stairs of Claverley Hall with its freshly polished banisters and high ceilings felt like the appropriate place to meet this year’s Most Likely to Be President, Arjun A. Akwei ’24. Upon entering Arjun’s dorm, I was greeted by his big smile and a tidied shoe rack — the epitome of culture and order.
I then spot Campaign Trail, a board game where players compete to become the President of the United States, stacked on a shelf with a teapot, spices, and other board games. How fitting. To its left was a nook with three red armchairs, a faux taxidermy deer mount, and a wall covered with a wood-patterned wallpaper to “emulate the old Harvard aesthetic,” Arjun explains.
As our conversation begins, Arjun’s roommate jokingly promises Arjun his vote and says bye to “Mr. President” on his way out the door.
But Arjun is no joke. Despite having a laid-back vibe, he speaks evenly, holds himself with strong posture, and maintains a piercing gaze. Okay, Obama. As one would assume of the most presidential student on campus, Arjun has racked up an impressive resume. Currently, he is pursuing a concentration in Government, a secondary in Astrophysics, and a citation in Chinese — all while serving as founder and co-president of the Harvard Undergraduate Think Tank and playing for the Men’s Club Soccer team. This doesn’t even include his stint as an ROTC cadet during his sophomore year.
Arjun, who was raised in the D.C. area by parents working in human rights activism and international development, has always known he was destined for policy.
“It was always interesting to me to watch them and hear about their work, and the struggles that they faced working on these policy issues from the outside,” he says. “I always thought that it would be better if there are people within government who are actually already taking steps to solve these problems rather than waiting for someone outside to either push them to do the right thing or fill gaps where they fell short.”
Arjun has spent his last four years dabbling in consulting, working on political campaigns, and researching the European Union’s relations with India and China. This year, he is exploring U.S.-India interests and relations for his thesis.
Like the rest of us, of course, Arjun doesn’t quite have it all figured out yet, but he does know the problems he wants to solve.
“I love working on state and local-level politics, not even the big federal stuff. How do we figure out the most efficient way to build a public transit system in order to connect people with opportunity? Or a supermarket? What is it going to look like for us to improve educational outcomes or mental health outcomes for students?” he asks. “Those are issues that I want to be banging my head against for my entire life.”
“As a 97-year-old, I want to look back and know that my life has been spent really working towards those,” he adds.
To achieve Arjun-level ambitions requires consistency. Aptly, his parents gave him the initials A. A. A, he jokes.
He sticks to a strict routine. “Typically, I’ll wake up around eight. Go to the gym. Grab breakfast. Then, have one or two classes. I’ll have a meeting for the Undergraduate Think Tank. Do a bit more work. Hang out with my suitemates. Grab dinner. Head to club soccer practice. Come back and do a bit more work,” he lists. “And then call it a night.”
The night of our interview, however, will be topped off by a performance with his blocking group at the AdamsDrag Night. Clearly, Arjun was born for the stage — whether recreating Tom Holland’s rendition of “Umbrella” or giving his future inauguration speech.
But perhaps his most presidential trait is his desire to get to know people.
“I like getting to hear people’s stories and trying to understand how they approach things, what they want from other people, the world,” he says. “I think we need more of that from our leaders.”
Arjun says he is just like everyone else.“I think people who interact with me tend to see the polished narrative,” he shares.
What most people don’t know is the version of him that bounced around between three different policy initiatives before finding his true interest. Or the person who was really struggling freshman and sophomore year and switched out of Social Studies largely because he “got bad grades on my papers and wanted something simpler.”
“My path through Harvard and the narrative that I string together based on that was not one that was clear at the outset or really clear in the middle,” Arjun says. “It’s something that makes sense looking backwards.”
“I would actually argue that my C.V. is not all that impressive in the conventional sense,” he adds. According to Arjun, the main pitfall of his C.V. is its lack of concentration in one area.“That is something that I just never did well at this place. But in not doing that, I had the opportunity to pull together a lot of very different experiences, all of which fit into my idea of service.”
— Associate Magazine Editor Ciana J. King can be reached at ciana.king@thecrimson.com.