I’ve been wanting to start this column for many reasons, but meeting Keith Raffel was undoubtedly the deciding factor. After meeting with me over Zoom mid-August to review my course selection, to which he supported each of my class choices (and perhaps with a little too much optimization), we grabbed lunch in the Mather Dining Hall where I expressed concern with my schedule for the semester. After a year of social and extracurricular deprivation, I wanted to do every club, program, and class that I had remote interest in. He told me my ambition for the school year reminded him of his self-diagnosed case of “career ADHD,” which he defines as “the unimpressive inability to hold down a job.”
Yet this precisely is what fascinates me most about Keith. After concentrating in History at Harvard College and getting a J.D at Harvard Law, Mr. Raffel has probably accomplished the most diverse and impressive set of career achievements of anyone that I have had the pleasure of sitting down with for dining hall lunch. He served as counsel to the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, ran for the Democratic Party nomination for the United States House of Representatives, then decided to enter the technology world and founded (and successfully sold) a software company focused on Internet-based customer relationship management and sales tools for businesses. It doesn’t end there. The tech and business industry soon manifested its monotony, and Raffel decided to start writing novels. After publishing five bestselling thrillers, Raffel now lives as a resident scholar in Mather House and regularly lectures for courses in technology and ethics.
What excites me most about speaking with Keith, however, wasn’t hearing about the myriad of accolades that he has received and seen over his career. He didn’t even seem too interested in discussing his accomplishments either. We’ve met with each other for lunch or tea probably four or five times this year already, and each meeting reinforces my awe in Keith’s sentiments towards his career and Harvard itself.
“People are too single-minded about what they want to do,” he said. “They look at Harvard as another rung on the ladder to get to the top, and I think that most people are missing what Harvard has to offer, which essentially is all of human knowledge in one location.”
Tunnel vision clearly plagues our student body. As something I’m sure all of us experienced in high school, where the ultimate goal of many activities was to get into college, we continue to view our experience at Harvard as nothing more than a stepping stone towards the next job, fellowship, or academic destination.
Last year, I wrote an article about the Econ department and discovered the startling truth that most Econ concentrators (which make up more than half of the student body) are only pursuing their field of study either out of lack of ardent passion for any other concentration or out of the desire for a practically instant financial reward after graduation. And whether or not the alternative is simple complacency, I struggle to justify attending school here unless I truly take advantage of this hub of human knowledge.
Raffel currently lectures for one of Harvard’s Gen Eds: Numbers in Policy & Society (Gen Ed 1173) He explains that in the first year of teaching the course in Spring of 2019, the class was essentially split in half between humanities and STEM students.
“Several of the STEM people kept complaining and told me, ‘don’t keep asking me the questions, just tell me the answers,’ to which I must try to encourage students to forget what they feel and start discussing [solutions],” Raffel told me. “There might be no right answer to these questions, but you have to have an answer and confront the questions head-on.”
Raffel’s observation on the discomfort that his students experienced when given real-world questions relates to the theme of our uncertainty to pursue career paths that are atypical or don’t necessarily yield immediate and sizable incomes.
We essentially have one four-year chance to have access to depths of knowledge in virtually every sport, artform, and academic genre you could imagine. I frequently find difficulty defining exactly what I want to accomplish here at Harvard. I’ve enrolled and unenrolled in too many clubs and courses to count. From HFAC, Crimson Key, WIB, Navy ROTC, Mock Trial, and even the club Polo Team, I switched from planning on concentrating in Computer Science to deciding on History and decided to take a year of Italian for no reason other than I enjoyed traveling to Italy. Did I mention I’m on the executive board of Surf Club? Yes, I might sound crazy and impulsive and fickle-minded. But I truly find beauty in the opportunities Harvard offers us to immerse ourselves in initiatives with virtually no consequences.
In Raffel’s words, I have a severe case of “pre-career ADHD,” yet I urge every one of you to unleash the sides of you that are curious about life. Because in four years, there will be no club fairs or Q-guides throwing unlimited opportunities of classes or potential passions at us. It truly is a challenge to properly balance passion and obligations, and it is our responsibility as students in such a diverse environment to discover a way to test them both.
Marbella Marlo ’24 (mmarlo@college.harvard.edu) is the Forum Editor for the Independent.