A Lesson Learned

When I recall my freshman year, I can only best describe it as a balancing act, trying to figure out how to fit things that I was interested in with what I had to do for my concentration with what seemed practical, etc... It wasn’t until this summer, though, that I began to realize and truly appreciate all that Harvard had to offer.

Over the summer I participated in the Program for Research in Science and Engineering (PRISE). It is a prestigious program on campus which forms an interdisciplinary community of scientists and engineers in order to learn and interact with one another through seminars, presentations, and social events (http://prise09.wordpress.com/). Moreover, my duties as Historian of the Black Men’s Forum (BMF) and Treasurer of the Harvard Society of Black Scientists and Engineers (HSBSE) had commenced over the summer as well. All in all, I had somewhat of a busy summer—but it was certainly a productive and enlightening busy. I thoroughly enjoyed the research that I was conducting over the summer; likewise, there was a particular excitement that arose as I lead my first projects for both the BMF and HSBSE.

Conducting research concurrently with the projects that I was leading revealed the surprising parallels between the fundamental lessons that these two seemingly different parts of my life this summer taught me. I learned how to efficiently and effectively lead a project; how to handle situations when they did not go exactly as planned; my flaws as a student and leader were made more tangible to me so that I could amend them. If I could give one advice to any student at Harvard, especially the freshman coming in, it is to take advantage of the many opportunities and resources that Harvard has to offer—from getting advice from upperclassmen to talking to big time professors; from joining organizations of interest to doing research. Don’t be afraid to try a variety of new things, even when they seem not to be related at all, because you may be surprised when you find out how related and complementary they can be.

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Glyvolner Gabriel, '12