A Day in the Life of a Harvard Student

It is my first year at Harvard. At 8 a.m., I get a text from my good friend—we’ll call her EG for privacy reasons—saying she’s left DeWolfe and is on her way to meet me at the life-threatening intersection between Santouka Ramen and Lamont Library. Because I had been dilly-dallying instead of getting ready, I am forced to pack my bag with one hand, change my clothes with the other, and type out a text with my toes—“Sorry, running late, give me two min,” knowing full well that I would be more than two minutes late.

When I finally get to the intersection, EG gives me a disapproving look, and I feel ashamed. She tells me that now we only have 20 minutes to eat breakfast because she has to transfer her laundry to the dryer. Honestly, I don’t know who “we” refers to, because I am not going to let my life be dictated by my friend’s laundry.

And yet, we leave breakfast after 20 minutes (EG threatened me). That is, after I eat a yogurt bowl that is 30 percent yogurt, 70 percent the most scrumptious granola I’ve ever eaten.

I guess that yogurt put me in a good mood, because I agreed to walk EG back to DeWolfe so she could do what she gotta do. It works out anyway because, in my hurry to leave, I forgot all my books and my laptop; it is raining, and I do not have an umbrella, so I need to return to Pennypacker Hall. As we walk under the Boston rain clouds, EG and I think wistfully about what it might’ve been like to live in the Yard.

But there is also a dark, ominous cloud in my mind—the thing that I had been dreading since the moment my eyes opened that morning. That’s right, you guessed it: Korean 123XB.

Seventy-five minutes of public humiliation. I genuinely do not understand how I can be so bad at reading off a screen. I’m such a slow reader that I think the professor stopped asking me to read the longer sentences because she felt sorry for me.

I am honestly grateful to return to the warmth of the Lamont basement, where EG has splayed out all of her worldly belongings on the table. I do half a reading before I fall asleep.

I wake up to EG gone. I am left only with the lingering presence of her judgment and the worst pins-and-needles feeling in my legs. I am about to be late to my next class, so I hastily wobble my way to my three-hour seminar, mentally preparing for all of the active listening I am about to do.

In class, I have a vibrant discussion with my peers, contributing meaningful insights about the text. The room is brimming with anticipation and excitement, everyone eager to share the nuances they gleaned from the reading.

And then after 15 minutes, everyone gets kind of tired. The discussion, once a stunning example of intellectual vitality, turns into a desperate one-way interview; the professor fishes for answers while I avoid eye contact because I’m frantically trying to do the second half—let’s be real, the second 80%—of the reading so I can be the good kid who actively participates the whole time.

After that exhausting fight for the professor’s approval, I go to the mail center and pick up my 18 Amazon packages from my last retail therapy session. I can hear my mother’s disappointment from here. On my trek back to Pennypacker, I balance them on my various limbs while still holding up my umbrella, feeling a little like a circus monkey that tourists point at and laugh at.

Then, I return to Lamont. Oh, dear God, get me out of this place.

For dinner, I reunite with EG and the various friends we share, except for our one friend whom we never see because she is part of a certain Harvard publication that is so much less cool than the “Harvard Independent.” We all reminisce about the time we spent with her, and I think about how thankful I am to be part of this super awesome publication instead.

I ask EG if she’d like to study together, but she tells me that she must return to DeWolfe to fold her laundry. I make peace with my place in her life during my return to Pennypacker.

As I lie in bed, my legs aching from the hike, I fall asleep to the soothing sound of the mice eating something crispy in the radiators.

There you have it, an authentic Harvard day-in-the-life. Not any of that Instagram influencer super-aesthetic-study-sesh crap.

If you could not tell, some parts may have been slightly exaggerated for the sake of emotional truth.

Is my life really that dictated by my friend’s laundry routine? No. Do I actually have that many packages to pick up? Only sometimes. Can I actually text with my toes? I wish. Do I really think the granola is that good? Yes—I don’t joke about granola.

In all seriousness, I did my best to capture the essence of my first-year experience, even if it required a little exaggeration.

It’s “Harvard,” but it’s also just daily life. The most interesting or meaningful part of your day is not always going to be a class, a club, or an event, and that’s okay! Sometimes it’s walking your friend back to her dorm so that she can do her laundry. For EG, I think it’s doing her laundry—she definitely seemed more excited about that than I was, at least.

When you tell people about what you’re doing at Harvard, for sure tell them all the cool, impressive stuff like being an InDesign Editor and writing for the “Harvard Independent.” Brag all you want about that; you deserve to. However, when it comes to actually living the “Harvard experience,” make sure that you pay attention to how you feel getting up in the morning, what it really is that you are excited about, and whether your choices are aligned with what you care about.

Know your values, choose your priorities wisely, and don’t sacrifice the everyday—you never know if you’ll get hit by the 1 Bus on Mass Ave.

Sam Park ’29 (shpark@college.harvard.edu) swears EG isn’t her only friend.