The Unspoken Reality Behind the Harvard Gates | Alex Chang | TEDxSHSID

[Music] [Laughter] [Music] this is my high specification I would say was pretty good but it's definitely not Harvard material I was eighth in my high school out of one thousand and one hundred seniors I was the math team for two years in my high school I played lacrosse and I help schools win first place the second place I was an orchestra concert master I'm student vice president I want personal awards in science olympiad know so I think this overall is pretty impressive but it's not nearly as impressive as someone who should be getting into Harvard in fact I applied to Harvard only because it was on the common application and I don't need to spend too much time on the application so I figured maybe I'll just file the application and then one day maybe like today I could tell people that I applied to Harvard and that makes me sound really smart but then oh I got in and so I figured no I want to go and check out how Harvard is I went to Harvard there's this pretty freshman weekend for incoming students and I met really cool friends I met really cool people at Harvard and cool professors I attended classes and classes seemed really cool had no idea what's going on I was sitting there but it seemed like it was really cool place for me to be so I sign up I confirmed that I want to go to Harvard that's a class of 2010 and a few months before then I remembered during my Harvard interview my interviewer asked me what I want to go to Harvard and I told him I didn't have really anything prepared so I just told him straight up that my family emigrated from Taiwan to America for to get me a better education and I figured that you know the definition of a good education is probably at Harvard so I figured if I could go to Harvard then that would be my way to say thank you to my parents and show them that they made the right decision so the following year at the final semester I went to Harvard and I didn't have high expectations for myself because I knew that I was in Harvard and I wasn't a genius like my classmates but even with the low expectation I was struggling the first semester at Harvard I had a c-plus my first c-plus ever in my life and imagine having all the bright minds from around the world all the number ones the about de Torian the perfect SATs the student-athletes all the all the entrepreneurs everyone together in one place we can't all be number ones anymore after the first semester for the next four years I was always invited into our resident dean's office for jasminetea because that's what happens when we're struggling in class and we're invited into the office to talk about what's going on and every time is it go in and tell them you know classes are hard and I was already doing my best for me it was okay High School for most Harvard students was a breeze for high school you just work hard and get the grade if you don't get the grade you work harder and you get the grade and I think that's the case for I would say almost all Harvard students but imagine someone who was always number one who had never had a grade lower than eight not even a - in their life to go to Harvard and for the first time in their life seeing that little minus sign next to a or perhaps seeing B's and C's when they try to work harder they still get the decencies and that's the pressure that will be will be with them because this is a new world that they have never seen before students are always involved in extracurricular activities Harvard students are overachievers or perfectionist and we're leaders so back when we're in high school we're team captains we're Club founders club presidents company founders so when everyone's together in one place we can't all be President in clubs someone has to be the president and someone has to be the vice president someone can't even be the vice president and so these collections can get really dirty and stressful also you've probably seen this diagram in college there are three things there to balance your second semak's there's a social life and their sleep in most cases you're told that you can only choose two out of three and it's impossible to balance all three together for me because college was tough there are many times when I even couldn't manage this one out of the three and then there's expectation from friends family and everyone around you if you go to a place at Harvard or any Ivy League's who are any top universities around the world you're expected to do well and you're expected to always be that perfect model for everyone else so imagine the time when someone like me or my classmates don't get that job that we want or don't get that internship that we want or don't get that great that we want the world gets different and we've become really really stressed and it's even more stressful when we realize that all of our friends around us are seemingly doing well they got the job that they want my friend get into Microsoft this other friend gets into Google there's other friends I've got Facebook Apple McKinsey Goldman Sachs and if I'm the one who hasn't got the job yet it's really stressful because when we're talking to friends we talk about what's going on where you guys swimming for the next summer we're guys doing after senior year everyone else has a really cool answer that we can congratulate them but I don't have an answer yet I love my parents my parents love me and whenever I have phone calls my parents this is pretty much every day in my junior and senior year they were asking how I was doing they would ask me how its job application whether I got the interviews that I want at Microsoft or Google or Facebook and over the phone I have to repeatedly tell them that I don't have the job yet tell them that I'm still waiting this other place rejected me I'm trying to apply to two more this other place got the first interview but they never got back to me the second round and so on all these phone calls the care that they're showing me are becoming a burden for me and I know that my parents would be okay with wherever I end up I don't have to go to the top names but part of me want to be successful in front of them parmi don't want them to worry about me and I want to be able to become successful so that they could be really proud of me you guys probably know who this guy is this is Judy the rabbit from Zootopia and in the beginning of the movie I don't you guys remember but in the beginning of the movie when Judy was having a horrible day in the police department her parents called her and asked her how she's doing she faked a smile and instead everything was going well and she felt like everyone was really nice in fact that didn't happen at all but she was only putting on a face of fake side of her just so that her parents would not be worried about her and I would say that that's the Matt's very common at places like Harvard it's a very stressful place and because we're so used to being successful in high school it's hard for us to deal with failures it is believed that more than half of Harvard students encounter certain symptoms of depression during their four years at Harvard and what makes the matter worse is that we're afraid to show this feeling because it's a sign of weakness that we're not used to it's embarrassing also to admit to friends that we're struggling when you say hi to our friends I say what's up the answer would be nothing the answer would be I'm busy or the answer might be unsired but it was never ever I'm struggling I feel stressful and I need help in my sophomore year it was a week and a half after Thanksgiving one morning at 7:00 a.m. our resident Dean came and knocked on our doors I went to sleep at 4 a.m. the night before because of problem sets so of course I'm not gonna be the person get up and open the door I'm away from my roommates open the doors so my roommate open the doors they he came back to me and said hey Alex the resident themes and the proctors are all outside you should probably wake up so I went went over open it door let them in feeling really grumpy and they said ona come in to tell us something I said all right but our roommate John is not around the guy anywhere in Red John is not around so you guys can tell me we can chat but we'll have to relay the message to John later and then the Proctor's tell us yeah that's why that's actually the reason why we're here so he sat down and the proctor told us that John committed suicide the night before in his lab and it was like we didn't know how to feel because we never encountered death in our lives and John looked perfectly happy John broke up with his girlfriend a high school girlfriend a few a few weeks ago and we knew he was SATA at that moment except soon after that moment he looked very happy here starting to meet other friends the weekend before we went to MIT for a party and he seemed like he got over the break-up and so little did we know that that happened and we even until today we still don't know what happened because we're all very good at hiding our feelings even for me I think during my time at Harvard since freshman year there many times I wanted to run away I being one April Fool's I lied I put on my face book that the following year I'm gonna transfer to NYU partly as a joke but on the other side that was half truth because I was afraid that I can't survive at Harvard anymore and I need a way to escape in my junior and senior year I thought about what would happen if I don't get a job what would I be an embarrassment to my parents would I be embarrassment to Harvard and then I thought about what's the purpose of being around them if I am an embarrassment maybe I should just run away and disappear forever Harvard was really for tough years for me I got a lot out of Harvard the academics here were awesome the friends I met they were awesome and I think what I got the most out of Harvard was what I called the Ivy League mentality which is perseverance confidence passion and ability to deal with stress while I was at Harvard the four years I regret it after the four years now looking back I was really glad I had the experience there so in the end I want to share three lessons I learned from my life and maybe you guys can resonate with this for seniors or soon-to-be seniors if you guys get into your dream schools congratulations but be careful it's called dream school because it's not within your ability it's a school that's above your ability that's why I clergy in school so if you go there expect other people to be smarter and brighter and better than you are know that the stress might be there and it will be uphill battle if you go there if you don't end up in your change school it's okay because what matters more it's not the school title what matters more is who you are I know it sounds really jaded but it's true you don't have to put on a face out of you if your level is there then go to that school and do well in that school if your goal is to go to a grad school if your goal is to find a good job then having a good GPA in that school in a school that fits you might be better than trying to get into your dream school and struggle there and lastly if you over achieve you will feel stressed at some point but know that it's okay know that other people may not speak up but know that other people are equally stressed as you are and it's okay for you to speak up and say that it's say that you're struggling if you're not doing well in school it's also okay it's probably not okay if you're in China because if you're in Asia you have to do well in school do well in Cal Cal get into the best universities and get a job that's the only way to success in Asia but if you're in America that's not that's not the right way to do it you could go to the best school and be successful or you could go to a decent school and have the right mentality and become very successful in the future so I'll leave you with this your success and your pride to your family does not end with your college admission letter and it's not defined by it also it's defined by who you are it's defined by your mentality and that's what's gonna be with you forever thank you you

Channel: Ivy-Way Academy

Views: 6,831,098

Rating: 4.8605599 out of 5

Keywords: Education, Ivy League, Depression

Id: kJGupYFaCGs

Length: 13min 7sec (787 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 25 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/HiroCode]

Great talk. Thank you very much for sharing. It helped me a lot because i am currently at university and i am feeling like that Harvard student right now. He gave many good insights, like: it's okay to speak up and say ,,i am struggling, i need help".

[u/StopTakingMyName23]

The Rory Gilmore Syndrome

[u/ILoveToCorrectPeople]

The message is very unclear here.

[u/Letranger70]

Hardvard