A Nerd’s Disneyland

Envisaging Harvard in a university-esk setting would be excusable, but campus wasn’t like that at all. If you can imagine Disneyland for nerds, that is probably a better comparison. Harvard University sprawls across the suburb of Cambridge, just across the river from the city of Boston. The beautiful old brick, Georgian and Federal architecture makes every building, on every street grand. I don’t think words could do the architecture justice; the history and all-encompassing atmosphere make for the realisation that “this is Harvard”. To give you an idea about the size of Cambridge, my dorm was one block from the Charles river which was about 20min walk from my classroom each day.

I stayed in Quincy House, one of 14 houses located in Cambridge, complete with our own house flag and shield. Although they are houses, a complex would be a better description as each house-complex has 4+ houses and a green square in the middle – with a hammock that made me very happy (Mum, I told you I could relax!).

Most houses have dining halls and a 3 meal a day cafeteria with an exceptional selection of food, albeit a bit repetitive after 45 meals! The lower level of the dining hall has fuse ball, ping-pong and pool tables and during the World Cup a projector was hung in the dining hall. Hogwarts style dining tables were where the most fascinating conversations happened because there were hundreds of students studying varying courses. The entrepreneur in me wanted to set up a course registration in the dining hall. At breakfast, I wanted to sign up for a creative thinking course, at lunch a negotiation course and by dinner I was on to English literature.

To my surprise I had my own room in a dorm that had 4 rooms and a lounge room – seems as though bunk beds were in only the movies; how I was looking forward to that! I loved staying on campus but if I was to do this again, I’d save the money and stay in Airbnb in the Cambridge vicinity. Although, I would miss out on weekly, study break – pizza nights hosted by proctors and the dorm parties. A dorm party constitutes “a gathering of 10 people or more”. On one Saturday evening, I thought I was super cool by receiving an under-the-door invite to a “dorm party”, sadly that novelty wore off when I realised I was one of about 60 people crammed into the tiny dorm common area with no aircon – I lasted 20 mins – although I wasn’t cool, it was cool! The summer heat aside, the dorm experience was brilliant.

The geek in me loved finding a new place to study each day. My favourite was the oldest part of Harvard, The Harvard Yard, 1636est. Known for the cross roads of Cambridge, the 22acres of lush grass makes for an inspirational place for reading on the coloured chairs under the canopy of mature trees.

Underneath that lawn are the Widener Stacks: ten levels deep, 92km of shelves, 8km of aisles stacked with millions of books in 100 languages. It’s very scary going down there by yourself, you’d want to bring courage, a compass and a sandwich. I befriended a stranger in the form of a stray librarian, as you do deep below the ground (Don’t tell Dad) and went on a tour – I live to tell the story.

Widener is particularly fascinating as only students can go inside. Without sounding like a Disneyland snob, it doesn’t take too long before getting sick of being in the middle of the tourist attraction inside of Harvard. Circulating tour groups are common and not conducive to studying so I did appreciate the student only facilities, such as the Winder Library, which was donated by a former student’s mum after her son sunk with the titanic and she gifted this building, his book collection and a perfect Gutenberg Bible –  $25 million worth on display for only students to take selfies with.

Further up the staircase, leads students up to the quintessential reading room under a curved ceiling.

1) Widener Library and 2) HBS Baker Library 

I also studied in the Harvard Business School, Baker Library, across the river. Unlike Harvard University, HBS is quiet and tourist free with giant trees shadowing the perfectly manicured grounds. There are 12 Grad schools at Harvard (I.e Law, Medical, Divinity, Business etc). No visit to Disneyland would be complete, without a visit to the apparel shop. Building after building, three stories high are where students and tourists alike can buy H Branded attire, from Harvard pillows, blankets, oven-mitts, varieties of sweatshirts, tee-shirts, pens and hats. I refuse to admit how much I bought – all I ask is that my friends don’t judge me when I come home looking like I’ve just jumped out of the pages of an ivy league flyer! Obviously, the ovenmitt remained on the shelf!

Like the libraries, there’s dozen of museums free for students. Sadly, I went kayaking, mountain hiking and to the beach on the weekends so didn’t enjoy museums as much as I should have – with the exception of visiting original Van Goughs and Picassos at the Art Museum and about 100,000 rocks..

Students also get access to frequent workshops and seminars. I felt as if I really got my money’s worth going to these free events with brilliant Harvard professors. Time only allowed for  three sessions: 1) The Power of Being Purpose Driven, 2) Tips for Effective Presentations, 3) Resilient and Practical Communication Skills.

After a special Leadership Coaching one afternoon, we were invited to a wine and cheese networking event at the Harvard Club. The Harvard Club is an exclusive club for alumni to host dinner parties, cocktail functions and private meetings and for summer school students, it’s an opportunity to feel inspired and dream about life as a full time Harvard Student. Let me tell you, the Summer School Students took enough LinkedIn Headshots to last a lifetime – I did, however, resist buying the Harvard Club dressing gown (#goodwife)

The Leadership Course and the chicken

The course structure wasn’t at all what I was expecting. You’d expect that in the home of the Harvard Business Review, the HBR case studies would be what we would study. I was rather surprised, this wasn’t discussed once, neither was traditional leadership case studies. Our leadership course content focused on 17th Century literature, Shakespeare, Warren Buffet, a catered movie evening, YouTube clips on sports stars, and a heck of a lot of political debate! Politics, because my Professor was on the Obama campaign for both terms. It was quite refreshing learning through different approaches, it was almost like they were trying to prove the point that learning leadership can be found all around us. I wasn’t, however expecting Trump and Kim Kardashian as case studies, nor my professor turning the classroom into a Shakespearean play! My professor should have been a Broadway actor, so theatrical that each year he visits Harvard, random people come and sit in his class or join in for the lunches he has with us in the cafeteria. Interestingly, he was a lawyer from Yale. It was there he met most of our guest speakers. Considering Harvard’s endowment is at $35.7 billion, you’d think they would have a budget for speakers but Summer School doesn’t which made a lot more sense as to why people go to certain schools purely for connections. It sounds silly, but one of the speakers, a neuroscientist (plus about 5 other things after his name) explained that one of the largest American boards was created based on connections through educational institutions. With that in mind, most of the Professor’s guest speakers were his contacts from Yale.

• General Council, Buzz Feed

• chief of staff for renowned politicking, with a message to aspiring leaders – be likeable, trustworthy and competent – the first two take priority, the third you can learn
• A network scientist – explained the correlation  between brain size and network size.
• A charisma coach, hired by Google, Barkley and other global firms. She was the only one who skyped rather than joined us in person. An astonishingly vibrant, larger than life lady that joined us from her farm with her pet chicken. As vivid as she was, if I was Google, I would feel like she’d be a priceless advisor.
  

A few of my favourite learnings:

We had one group assignment, a 30 minute presentation, a daily blog and a exam paper on our new leadership philosophy. I liked the blog posts because they were very self-expressive about our learning and experience. Daily, we had to comment on our peer’s blogs, so the more luring the title, the more likely you’ll get a comment added to your blog! (I have downloaded copies, message me if you wanted to read them). A highlight of the course was getting my blog selected for class discussion. Here’s a few things I have learnt:

• Adapting charismatic and technocratic leadership dependent on situational context
• Understanding my values, and ensuring the consistency between appearance and reality.
• The ‘need’ and ‘know how’ to create leadership, project and maintain reputation.
• Leadership, done well, is a bloody hard work.
• The social responsibility of leadership
• The need to cultivate weak network ties as much as strong ties
• The concept of the coin of the realm, knowing what drives power in your organisation
• The value of listening, being likeable and leading with integrity
• The power of having purpose driven employees, to drive efficiency  – 4.59% of Harvard Collage applicants are accepted each year, of the 50,000 that apply, those that have purpose are granted approval

The People – cofounder of Harvard’s latest “society”

A typical school day comprises of blog posts in the morning, prereading (a lot) for the evening class, periodic small group meeting debates and then class from 18:30 – 21:30. From 2200 onwards would be the only time of the day when we weren’t studying so a secret society was formed between a few of us that wanted to keep the learning going. It began as a bit of a joke (and still is) when we saw the need for likeminded people to get together and bounce ideas from class, share life experiences and raise heated topics for discussion. A few days into it, it began to expediential grow. Creating a following is pretty cool when you look up and realise you are meeting nightly with fascinating, intelligent individuals.

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It isn’t often that opportunities arise where people have the time to focus on learning and socialising on a global level. For context, our class represented  a whopping 70 counties and 29 nationalities with varying backgrounds who I can now call mentors and friends.

Many were on their holidays, coming to learn for the sake of learning but being relentlessly driven was their common trait. Living, socialising, learning, and sightseeing with people for all but 5 hours a day (sleep time) makes you become immediately close. Celebrating Independence Day at our classmates house was a highlight, followed by Bostonian fireworks.

Did it live up to the Harvard Brand?

For three weeks, I was awake for 19hours per day as I just didn’t want to go so sleep as there was so much to learn and enjoy. A Harvard Experience exceeds the world class teaching in a world class institute, it’s the global exposure to array of diverse talent. The reality of what I had been exposed to hit home on the last night. Our final class was a potluck dinner in class with 29 national cuisines, before leaving the class at 9pm for a impromptu field trip. We arrived at Harvard Yard, with only the moon shining through the trees to pave the way. The beautiful Widener Library hovering over us and the staircase becomes our classroom for the last lecture. Like every other lecture we listened intently to a theatrical professor engagingly taking us through the final readings. With the Harvard Yard as the Professor’s backdrop, he had one message for us. Go forth and make a change in the world, challenge the status quo, make decisions with integrity and do good in the world. You can’t really put words to such an experience, but surrounded by 70 highly driven professionals on a global stage, at that moment it actually felt like anything was possible.

It felt like only yesterday when I apprehensively walked under the “Learn to Change the World” sign at the ID card office, and now it’s time to leave, but I’m ready to see Dave and the team again – the people I am thankful for, for allowing me the privilege of briefly pausing life.

Life at Harvard felt like living in a little bubble, an incubator think-tank filled with remarkable humans. When our time is up, we pop out the other side far more openminded about what leadership means and the impact it can have on the world and the wonderful people we share it with everyday.