Columns
Harvard Must Start Subsidizing Students’ Post-Grad Service Jobs
One of the luxuries of a diploma from an elite school is that anxiety about being unemployed is not a primary factor in decision-making about post-graduate jobs, especially when the economy is on the upswing. But a well-paying job versus a low-paying option is still a relevant contrast for most Harvard grads, just like it is for pretty much every member of the U.S. workforce.
Getting Support during Covid
Life also only gets messier, and the sooner you can surround yourself with people who are willing to go the extra mile for you, to speak with you late at night, to shoot the shit with you, the better. A while ago my best mate reached out to me when he noticed something was wrong. Instead of doing something reckless, I spent the rest of the day with him eating extra-spicy fried chicken and talking things out. If any one moment illustrated to me the value of having people to support you, it was then.
Tax Avoidance 101 with Leon Black and Jeffrey Epstein
But our institution and its counterparts are trapped in a gold-plated version of the prisoner’s dilemma. Harvard — along with the MoMA and other Black-financed enterprises — could benefit from the increased levels of federal funding afforded by equitable, grift-free taxation. More crucially, they have, or perhaps should have, a duty as society-minded institutions to protect the public’s well-being against the excesses of exorbitant inequality.
Why Granola Advocates Should Embrace Corporate (Ir)responsibility
Consumers and evolving market forces are incentivizing corporations to act consciously, as well as irresponsibly. From this, we can glean that not all corporations can be subjected to a rigid good-bad binary.
Confessions of a Harvard-Yale Arrestee
I realize that not many of us are in a position to invest, particularly in the depths of an economic crisis. Nonetheless, in a country where everyone is largely on their own to provide for a secure old age, we will all need to think about saving for retirement, and as we are often told, the sooner the better. If you do invest, take the time to make sure that you do not invest in fossil fuels.
A Bridge into a Black Girl’s Thoughts
Consider this column my own form of protest. Within this protest, I want to unveil the joys, the sadness, the anger, the fear, and love that Black women experience when operating through this world, and writing creates a space where I can bring these dimensionalities to you. My storytelling is an act of resistance because ultimately, my writing is a telling of who I am: commodifiable for no one.
I’m Scared to Write this Column
Before throwing out the possibility, a sense of guilt gave me pause. If someone doesn’t speak out, will anything change? Shouldn’t I be able to share my views? Harvard is an academic institution, after all, and the exchange of ideas should not be an anxiety-inducing ordeal; it should be foundational to intellectual growth.
Science’s Creativity Crisis
This column will examine factors that obscure truth-seeking in scientific research, such as funding mechanisms, irreproducibility, peer review, and barriers to science communication. We must confront how our current academic structures and institutions promote thinking inside the box instead of encouraging scientific daring.
What I Learned Talking to my High School’s Valedictorians
For all our talk of merit and egalitarianism, our schools betray the deeply hierarchical and unforgiving character of not only our educational infrastructure but our society at large. And while our economy self-corrects when it outpaces its limits, students suffer the consequences of schools that push them beyond their limits.
The Case for Increasing Undergraduate Enrollment
Rather than adopting needed reforms like ending preferences for legacy students, the expansion would allow Harvard to tout its increased socioeconomic diversity without upsetting its most influential donors. Yet these reforms clearly aren’t in the offing, and we have no time to lose.
A Worthwhile Waste of Time
Many people won’t feel they have the time to add something new to their schedule. But I promise this effort is worth it. When you find the right “hobby,” you add something to your life that isn’t about the relentless pursuit of improving yourself or achieving something, goals I think comprise a large portion of our time as Harvard students.
A Turkish Academic Bastion Is Collapsing. Who’s Listening?
It’s undeniable that universities are an essential part of any functioning democracy — and that any attempt at dismantling liberal democratic institutions necessarily passes through (or rather over) independent-minded educational institutions. They occupy a dual role, canaries in a coal mine that can also, through their powerful institutional call, help thwart the advance of authoritarian, illiberal policies at home — as our own University did, to its credit, under the Trump administration when it sued to halt new visa policies that would have evicted and barred international students.
Granola Advocates Are Never Satisfied, and You Shouldn’t Be Either
To be an environmental advocate, you don't have to purchase Birkenstocks and kiss goodbye to capitalism. You do, however, need to embrace the same relentless pursuit of change, focus on the details, and find within yourself the conviction that we all can and must do better for one another and for future generations.
Affirmative Action: Where Did It Begin?
Scholars have long debated how a just affirmative action program should treat historically disadvantaged groups. Some advocate expanding opportunity for such groups while avoiding explicit distinctions along racial lines. Others emphasize the need for preferential policies in order to counter decades of systemic racism and ensure adequate representation.
Lepidoptery, Literature, and Liberal Arts
I am suggesting that, when distaste rises at the thought of a writing assignment or a quantitative distribution requirement threatens to puncture a paper-lined bubble, we approach it instead with the same curiosity we do our own concentrations.
An Orchestra Fit for Harvard
An orchestra as fine as Harvard’s shouldn’t be taken for granted. HRO at its best sounds like what it is — a group made up of conservatory-level players who happen to also have a penchant for academics.
How We Move Forward
If history has taught us anything, it’s that we have incredible possibilities ahead of us — and I look forward to these endless surprises most beautiful.
McKinsey, Snakes, and the Purpose of a Harvard Education
We have a campus culture that instills a very specific set of normative values. We tell our students what we value — money, power, influence.
Relying On Lying Online
Complete honesty is too much to ask for, and it might even go against our nature. Increased accountability and estimation of others, however, especially when we have nothing to gain – now that would be an earnest goal.
A Quarantine of Forms
In the last 100 years, developments in physics have reaffirmed the fundamentality of mathematics to the universe — and in a subtle way, pointed toward the centrality of consciousness.
A Place To Rest
To every one of these encounters, I brought with me a bit of her and the faith we shared: Seeing the best in people. Acceptance. Curiosity. Experiencing a living, loving God. A love of nature, of indie, folksy pop, of Christian worship music.
The Vast Reserves of Humanity
In the wake of a breathtaking, border-line unbelievable 12-month vaccine effort, I’m just writing to record my amazement at humanity’s vast reserves. Welled up in people, welled up in peoples, springing forth in every crisis and, sometimes, just for the hell of it.
Strange Homecomings
It is finally Thanksgiving — a time to celebrate and express gratitude for our most familiar faces. And yet, as per usual, I’m thinking about strangers.
Fall in Love
Hernandez and Neuhauser’s story is a testament to the authenticity and creativity of relationships, romantic and otherwise, that can be catalyzed and maintained via a multitude of online platforms.