Old

IT ISN'T SO EASY to return to Harvard for senior year. The weather is wonderful, the rooms are capacious, and the friends are better than ever, but a lot is scary, a lot is uncertain, a lot is ahead. We come here as wide-eyed 18-year-olds. We make friends, pick concentrations and take tutorials. We write, we act, we dance, we intern. We learn Harvard's ropes and then teach them to others. But after junior year, things change. Suddenly we don't feel so young anymore. We realize that post-graduation plans are not just topics of conversation--they are reality. Next year--as we move into a job, a graduate school or unemployment--Harvard will be far behind us. Harvard will become a topic of conversation. So we need to plan now. In our final year of undergraduate frolicking at fair Harvard, we must litter our lives with admissions tests, graduate school applications, job interviews and dozens of fellowship attempts. It's an awful lot to do. And on top of the mundane mechanics of post-graduate preparation is the basic question that can drive any senior crazy: What do I really want to do with my life? And am I equipped to answer this question at the age of 21? Do I want to play the game and pursue a high-paying career? Or do I want to follow my heart--at least for now--and do something rewarding for myself and others? The hope is that the two goals aren't necessarily opposing. But the intermediate objective is to delay an answer to this question for a year or two. With college ending and Real Life fast approaching, a fellowship or a travel grant is the best we can hope for. That, and generous thesis readers, continued good times and long-lasting friendships. No matter what we do, one fact is unchangeable: We're leaving Harvard in nine months.