We All Have to Work Seven Hours a Day

To the editors:

As a member of the administrative staff with professional and personal commitments outside of Harvard, I have mixed emotions to Judd B. Kessler’s recent column (“The 168-Hour Week,” April 8). My knee-jerk reaction to the statistic that students spend seven hours a day on academics is “so what?” One could argue it’s your job and as staff, we work seven hours a day (or more). Students at Harvard Extension School plus graduate students are juggling full-time jobs and family lives in addition to rigorous school demands.

Kessler points out problems that are epidemic in our entire working society. If Harvard is truly training the leaders of tomorrow, then the students have an opportunity to experience what most American workers experience on a daily basis. Hopefully, when they become the managers and CEOs of tomorrow they will not forget this lesson and try to affect change in their respective organizations.

In my “outside of Harvard career,” I work with individuals in life planning, balance and goal setting. The first lesson is that we all have choices to say “yes” or “no,” and that the most effective boundaries are the ones we set for ourselves. The ones set top-down rarely last forever.

Harvard students should continue to strive for an institution that supports the concept of time and life balance, but at the same time realize they have made choices by choosing this university. Only each individual can answer if he or she made the correct choice.

Dennis M. Gaudet

April 8, 2003

The writer is student appeals coordinator at the Harvard Extension School.