Passing Time in Ec10a

Ah, Ec 10a — the rite of passage that unites freshmen like nothing else. You walked into the first week of classes with grand intentions of becoming the next Wolf of Wall Street before becoming quickly disillusioned.

Here’s the thing about Ec 10a: everyone takes it, everyone complains about it, and it’s just a perpetual cycle for generations of Harvard students. You convinced yourself that attending lectures in person would be more “engaging” than watching them at 2x speed in Lamont basement the day before the midterm. Rookie mistake. There’s no playback speed in real life during an in-person lecture, and you may find yourself lulled into a gentle stupor while learning about marginal utility curves.

But fear not, if you need to stay awake during those 75-minute lectures twice a week without actually absorbing any knowledge about supply and demand curves, here are some alternatives to paying attention in lecture.

Strategic Socializing

Ec 10a is the perfect place to catch up with friends and share juicy gossip about all the drama going on. If you’re discussing something particularly interesting, pepper your conversation with economics buzzwords. “The opportunity cost of staying in and studying for my midterm over the weekend versus going to Holworthy basement is really fascinating,” you might say, while also debating whether your situationship’s latest text actually means anything, or if you’re just too invested in this.

There’s also the fail-proof strategy of just complaining and commiserating. Your back hurts from the benches in Sanders. That section kid keeps raising their hand to ask irrelevant questions when all you want is for the lecture to end. The person next to you is munching on powdered eggs (sigh) from Annenberg drenched in Mike’s hot sauce (and you can smell it). There’s so much to complain about at any given moment, and inflate the misery you and your fellow Ec 10aers feel.

Productive Procrastination

Since your laptop is already open for “taking notes,” you might as well put it to good use. Online shopping becomes an economic exercise in real-time market analysis. That $200 cashmere sweater you definitely don’t need? Well, it’s for consumer behavior research. Adding classes to your Crimson Cart for next semester already? That’s forward-thinking academic planning.

Instead of learning about supply and demand through analyzing graphs in lecture, try implementing a flipped classroom approach to enrich your learning. See firsthand how your purchases bolster the economy — it’s all part of the transformative learning experience anyways!

And if anyone questions your shopping browsing habits, you can always claim you’re doing empirical research on consumer spending patterns. See? You are learning economics.

The real lesson of Ec 10a isn’t about markets or economic theory — it’s about learning to look engaged while you think about when you should do your laundry or work on your 123412 comp assignments. P-sets are temporary, but the friendships forged through academic suffering last forever. Or at least until you all drop concentrating in Econ and never speak again.

Happy lecture watching!