Full Careers
How to make the best use of a Harvard Education?
1) What kind of resources/services should one take advantage of while studying at Harvard? 2) What are the events going on at Harvard campus that will broaden one's intellectual horizon? Anything entertaining happening around the Boston-Cambridge area that one should be aware of? 3) Speaking of finding a job after graduation, what's the most useful source? University's career services, or else? ... Any additional comments are welcomed!
Public Comments
- Okay I'm going to tell you something that you need to hear. If you are going to Harvard and you can't answer these questions for yourself using run-of-the-mill search tools and your own wits, then Harvard made a mistake admitting you.
- I'm not sure how similar/different Harvard is to other schools when it comes to the scholastic experience (to me any school is any school. If only 10% of Fortune 500 CEO's are graduates of Ivy League schools, it kind of tells something about the myth of having to have a degree from an Ivy League School to excel in your career), but the best advantage over anything is to network, network, network. Whether it's with professors who will one day write you letter of recommendations, or students who will one day be with you out there in the real-world, or graduates who are currently in their career and could point you in the right path, networking helps clear a lot of things up while you're in school and benefits your future after you graduate. Start joining any of those scholastic clubs that cater to your major, or start working part-time in some field that works to your major's advantage. p.s. I've always wondered how someone goes to Harvard, especially if their parents aren't super-rich. Isn't it something like $30,000 per full tuition year? I mean even with Stafford loans, grants, and/or scholarships, I've never heard of any of these options covering such large amounts. Would anybody know by any chance how it works?
- Harvard (and other Ivy) grads are overrepresented in powerful and well-paying jobs, so it's likely that a Harvard degree *does* help you. In fact, I've talked to med school admissions people who say that they will often adjust your undergrad GPA up as much as half a point to account for coming from a prestigious undergrad school. Your questions really depend on your major, but no matter what you study, you should get to know the faculty. The biggest advantage to attending a top undergrad school is that you get to be in an environment where everyone wants to work hard (compare and contrast with state universities, where have the students are just there for the beer), as well as that you get to be around world class faculty. Find someone well-known in your major and develop a good working relationship. Beg and beg until someone lets you help with a research project. This will likely get your name on an academic paper next to a famous name, and it's impossible to overstate how much that will help when you apply for grad school. I don't know the Boston area that well, so I can't help there. I went to a top tier science/engineering school (between 10 and 19 every year in the U.S. News rankings), and I was surprised at how *unhelpful* the career services office was. I found work after graduation (and before grad school) by networking with the biology professors. One of the guys I did research with found me a research job at a top ten medical school. (I also got an offer in a physics department just from sending my CV around to every professor I could find, but I turned it down to focus on the other job.) The lesson I learned is that schmoozing with your professors is more important than dealing with the career services people, even at a top school. Actually, that might be especially true at a top school, since the professors are going to be better and the career services people will still likely be average.
