Sailing Off Into the Unknown

Marc O. Laitin '96-97 will not be here for graduation. The sailing team member departed yesterday for the U.S. National fleet racing competition in Wisconsin.

He succeeded in qualifying for the event--in which Harvard has not qualified since 1987--and is competing in the races today.

It might seem odd that Laitin would choose to compete rather than walk with his social class, but the sailing team member often finds he must choose between competing with Harvard's sailing team and being on its campus.

Laitin and his teammates spend almost every weekend in the fall and spring away from Harvard, sailing in a variety of regattas.

This year's sailing season has gone "amazingly well," Laitin says, "better than anyone's expectations."

Laitin is currently in a prime racing position, paired with teammate Daniel W. Parkes '98. Laitin says he and Parkes work well together because they are the two most experienced members of the team.

But Laitin says the sailing lifestyle, while exhilarating, has put pressure on him to perform. For the past three years, he has basically been on the bench, he says.

Laitin, who grew up in San Diego, says he began sailing when he was about five years-old and began racing in summer regattas when he was fifteen. He had a very successful junior sailing career and raced in the junior national regattas.

According to Laitin, he came to Harvard "prepared to sail."

Upon entering college, he decided to dedicate himself completely to one pursuit instead of participating in an array of extracurriculars, he says.

"I always felt that I was short-changing myself in high school," he says.

However, Laitin says that during his first years of sailing at Harvard, he lowered his academic expectations by putting pressure on himself to succeed in sailing.

Laitin says that perhaps the decision that "coming in, this would be my one thing" may have caused him to place more emphasis on sailing than on studying.

Unfortunately, Laitin says that his grades dropped when he spent too much time on the water. "I didn't fail freshman year, but it didn't go as well as I hoped."

He says he has "taken a more relaxed attitude" toward sailing than he did when he first arrived. Laitin's record speaks for itself. After ranking 15 out of 18 in the fall Shell Trophy Regatta sophomore year, Laitin's boat placed second this year--just one point away from first place.

Getting Here

The dedicated sailor says that it was the Sailing Team's well organized, impressive recruiting effort which brought him to Harvard.

"I wouldn't have applied otherwise," he says. He would have chosen Brown instead, he says, where his younger sister is currently a junior.

Laitin says the stereotypical views he held of Harvard changed upon his recruiting visit when he saw the diversity on campus.

"[Harvard] is different than any other college in that there's almost everything in a not very big student body," he says.

Laitin has another semester left before he will graduate. His time of was the result of a sophomore fall which he calls "miserable."

Laitin is an economics concentrator, and he says that it was he required sequence of economics classes sophomore year that drove him off campus for a break. "It was the worst two hours, three times a week," he says of those classes.

Despite his initial setback, Laitin says he stuck with economics despite the hardship involved, because there "was nothing interesting enough" to give up what he had already invested in the economics curriculum.

Laitin says he knew coming to Harvard would involve difficult decisions early-on in his course of study.

"If I'd wanted to search around for years and years, I should have gone to Brown," he says.

In the end, he says he finds his course work, "fairly easy" and "occasionally interesting." He is not on an honors track, and he says he is fine with that decision.

Time Out

Laitin took advantage of his timeout from Harvard to work in cloud forest as part of a Global-Roots volunteer program in Monteverde, Costa Rica. Because it does not rain year-long in that area, it is considered a cloud, and not a rain, forest, Laitin explains.

In Monteverde, Laitin worked on trails, hung out with the locals and played soccer.

Laitin's trip to Costa Rica was not his first extended experience abroad.

When he was ten years old, Laitin spent his fifth-grade year in Barcelona where his father, a science professor at the University of Chicago, was working. Laitin also spent a year in Nigeria when he was six.

Laitin says he thinks this time abroad has shaped some of his distinguishing features among the Harvard student body.

"I enjoy being alone more than most people I know in college," he says.

Laitin says the people he knows here are "very sheltered." But he says that he, too, is sheltered. The only difference is that "I've been able to recognize that I'm sheltered," he says.

Laitin says he will finish his last semester in either the fall or the spring, depending on the sailing season. He says he may spend the fall at Harvard, then coach college or high school sailing in the spring. Or he says he may decide to teach in Puerto Rico or somewhere else abroad.

Laitin says he enjoys teaching sailing and has spent the past summers coaching sailing in different parts of the country, including Chicago and Minnesota.

Laitin is not sure what he wants to do after he graduates, but he says he knows what he doesn't want--the hard work and stress of a business profession.

"I have a feeling I'm going to flail around for a while," he says. "I don't mind it. To me there's no reason to work. I'd much rather screw around now than when I'm 80. How much fun do those 70 year-olds have in their motor homes?"

Laitin says he doesn't know if he has "the drive to do an Olympic campaign." He also says he does not like the idea of sailing boats for a company to "win races for rich folks."

Rather, Laitin says racing should be a form of pure enjoyment, despite the stress of competition.

"Racing can be very frustrating," Laitin says. "You're competing in a sport, but it's fun to do. If I'm doing [poorly] in a race, I'm still out in the water. I'm sailing. How bad can it be?"

"Everyone wants to win, but if you screw up it's not the end of the world," he adds.

In addition to sailing, Laitin has found time at Harvard to volunteer as part of the Global Education Out-reach Program.

But this has been a "low time commitment," he admits. He has maintained his original intention to devote himself to sailing as his one activity at college.

Looking back at the last four years, Laitin explains, "I have made my choices with the future in mind."

"I can't imagine myself anywhere else," he says.