- So I graduated from Harvard
in 2015, almost six years ago there was pomp, there was circumstance, and honestly, I was just glad
to be getting out of there. And I thought to myself as I was leaving, I worked my butt off for this degree, I did my time, this
had better be worth it. I've done several Harvard
related videos on this channel. I even documented my
experience while I was there. And I've given
(beep sound) plenty of advice for
people who want to apply, but should you apply? Is it worth the strife? Now that I'm a few years out, I feel like I can evaluate
what was the true cost of going to Harvard? What did I sacrifice, and was it worth it? (upbeat music) Hey, it's your girl Ahsante, helping you move consciously
and creatively through life, so let's go. Before we get into my thoughts on Harvard, a quick disclaimer. Since I'm evaluating my Harvard
experience in this video, I'm going to be critical. I went there on my own volition, it was my choice, and I know
there's a ton of privilege and even being able to do that. And I know that graduating
from Harvard is beneficial to a person's career. So I wanna be clear that I am
grateful for the opportunity, I'm going to be critical of the
institution and the culture. Harvard is a huge institution. I went to Harvard college, specifically. Having talked to other
friends in different schools, I feel like these issues are
relevant across the Ivy League and across elite colleges in general. Note that this is my personal opinion based on my own experience
and interpretation. Some people absolutely
loved their time at Harvard. My thoughts are more nuanced. And to do justice to that nuance, this video is on the longer side but I have to illustrate what
it's like to be in that place for you to understand where
my thoughts are coming from. When asking was Harvard worth it, the first cost you probably
think of is financial. And I do wanna acknowledge
that degree is expensive. Harvard only does
need-based financial aid, they don't give merit scholarships. They do an assessment of your
family's financial situation and then decide how much
your family is going to pay. I don't think they did a great
assessment for my family, and so it was definitely a
financial burden for me to go. If your family doesn't
make a lot of money, then Harvard will cover the cost entirely. If your family does make a lot of money, then it doesn't matter for
you to pay full tuition. If you're in the middle
and I grew up middle-class, it's expensive. So the financial cost can
be a deterrent, absolutely. The more serious costs though
for me was psychological. The culture at Harvard is tough and it's an extremely
competitive environment, like it was a shock to
me how competitive it was and how high a level
you had to compete at. And judging from my comments sections, some other people also have no idea. Every now and then I'll get
angry comments that are like, "I got perfect SAT scores, and I got top grades and
I didn't get into Harvard. This is racist." And I'm like, "Oh, you have no idea how competitive Harvard is. And I guess you also don't realize that black people are capable
of getting perfect scores." Harvard's like, "Oh,
you have perfect scores. Great, so do a lot of people. What else you got? Oh, straight A's, hmm,
guess that made you special in your hometown. That's the bare minimum here, hun." Like that's very much
the energy on campus. It's very much, "Oh, you get high marks, so does everyone else get in line." I remember visiting campus
for Accepted Students Weekend, and I was eating in the majestic
Hogwarts-like dining hall, just soaking it all in and thinking about how fortunate I was to be
here, at this fabled school, with all this elite status. And I asked the girl
sitting across from me as a conversation starter, "Did you ever think that
you would get into Harvard?" And she said, "Well, the valedictorian from my school usually gets in, so." Like I was shook. First of all, I went to public school and no one in the living
memory of the school had gone to any Ivy League, like in no way, was this normal for me. And second, that was my
indication that everyone here is at the top of their
class, including myself. I was salutatorian, number two. Everyone here is the best. That is the new normal,
that is the new standard. You are not special. And I was completely unprepared for the intensity of the competition. You are constantly judged by
and compared to your peers, both formally and informally. You have to compete to
get into certain classes. Like you have to submit an application. I wound up majoring in film,
which is in the art department, and most studio art classes
were limited to 15 people. You apply, you interview, and then there's a list
posted of who got into what. And preference for the art classes is given to those who
are within the major, but in order to get into the major you have to have take in an art class. Like it's stressful. And in general, a lot of
classes are graded on a curve. So not everyone can get top marks and you're competing directly against your peers to get the A. A lot of classes over assigned readings, so there was no way for you
to get all the work done, so that was stressful. And if you're thinking to yourself, "Well academics might be hard,
but at least student clubs and activities would be a
place to relax," think again. Many of the extracurricular clubs there were also competitive to get into. Hi, could I write for the magazine? Well, maybe, if you can pass our tests. What are the tests? Jump through four flaming hoops, leap over a pit of our bubbling destain, produce three brilliant
works of literary genius. Then show up to a mystery
location at exactly 12:07 am. Get down on your knees and grovel. That sounds like a lot to potentially not even make it in at the end. Sorry, not everyone can hack it. What can I join the acapella group? That depends they're seven. Do you wanna join the ones that are noble or the ones that are common? Any of them? Hmm, no. Okay, can I join this non audition choir? Well, you can join, but
she'll never get a solo, we'll see if you make
it into the small group. Maybe if you ask us nicely,
we'll let you sing at a concert. Like that's the energy
across the entire campus. And whatever thing you wanted to try, someone here has been doing it since they were nine years old and they're better than you, so. At the beginning of the
year or of the semester, clubs would have what was
called a comp process. It's several weeks long,
there's an interest meeting. You might be invited to an initial social event
or a group gathering. You do some sort of
exercise or assignment, and then you're invited
back for subsequent rounds of testing, interviewing,
or additional assignments. And eventually they whittle down and decide who they
invite to join the club. The competition is endless as is the sense that one
group is better than another because it's even more
competitive to get into. This applies to things you might expect like theater, acapella,
performance groups. It also applies to student
newspapers and magazines. It also applies to most social groups. It also applies to service organizations. The one that sticks out in my
memory is that I could not get into a club that teaches
dance to kids after school. Like I wasn't good enough to get into the teaching dance to kids club. And if you follow me on
Instagram, y'all know I can dance. So that wasn't the issue. It's exclusion for the
sake of exclusivity. And it can lead to a lot of rejection especially your freshman year when you don't know anyone in these clubs, because knowing people
in the clubs is really what allows you to get in because everyone is super talented. And this was a big blow for
me coming from a high school which did not work that way at all. They just let you into clubs
that you were interested in, and if it was a performance group then talent was usually enough. Like I said, in my video
on how I got into Harvard, I did a ton of extracurriculars
in clubs in high school, not for my resume, but because
I have a lot of interests. I'm a multimedia artist, I'm interested in politics and debate. I'm interested in math and science. When I had an interest
or a passion or a talent for something, I was used
to being welcomed in. At Harvard, the culture
emphasizes shutting people out. This is also the case for finals clubs which have nothing to do with studying. That's the name for a set
of on-campus organizations that are like fraternities and sororities, except they're not national,
they're exclusive to Harvard and they're not authorized
by the university, they're maintained by alumni. And that includes some clubs
having property on campus that's maintained by alumni which basically acts like a frat house. They're also a primary
way for younger students to access alcohol and as
such they are a social center for parties on campus
and are a dominant part of many students' social lives. You have to be invited by a current member to apply to join a finals
club which is called punching. Punching a finals club is a lot like pledging a fraternity or sorority, but again, it's an
invite-only comp process of people getting
whittled down every round after various happy hours, gatherings, schmoozing at socials,
different activities, and the members voting on
who makes the next round and ultimately who gets in. And of course there's a hierarchy of which clubs are the most elite. These clubs are exclusionary by design. And if you guessed that these clubs must be incredibly white, then you would have guessed correctly. Just adds another layer of the campus feeling historically hostile towards people of color. That entire campus is
hyper-competitive hierarchy and ingroups, and outgroups. Even within the Black community on campus and within spaces
that profess to be open, it was very cliquey and
didn't always feel welcoming to all Black students. It's very hard to escape
that mindset of comparison when that's the dominant culture, it's not about the quality
of the work that you do, that's a given, it's not about how committed
you are to the group, it's a constant popularity contest. And I felt like a misfit, like I was a nerd among nerds. Facing constant rejection in
spite of working really hard and doing your best is
rough on the psyche. It can really mess with
your sense of self-worth. You can feel like you're doing terribly within this environment
of super achievers, whereas in the grand scheme of things, if you step outside of the Harvard bubble, you're doing fine. If there's anything that I
could say to my previous self it would be, "Ahsante, you're doing fine. The opinions of these
people will not matter at the end of four years,
you're doing fine." And even if you are doing well, you can feel like you
aren't doing well enough. You never stop comparing and you can easily feel like
you're not measuring up. Like you have less value
than your peers do. Like you're not getting enough accolades. Like you're not getting into the really esteemed organizations. And at this point, your
entire life is school. And those esteemed organizations
feel like they matter. They have a lot of power
and influence on campus. Everything in the vicinity
is oriented towards Harvard. So that becomes your whole life, and if your whole life, your
entire environment is saying, "You're not good enough. You can't sit with us." Even though you've
worked hard to get here, and now hard work isn't enough, and there's always more work to do. There's an overwhelming
amount of reading to do. The piece sets are unreasonably long, and it seems like everyone
around you is doing better than you are and you don't measure up. You're not as valuable. You feel inferior, you feel worthless, ostracized, isolated, alone, terrible, and you start to wonder, what's the point. The mental health services on campus we're not known to be very helpful. Peer counseling was the most visible way to get mental health support on campus. Students trying to help
other students like, "Don't freak out, don't do it. Just talk to someone, we're here." And I think if I didn't have a loving, caring home environment with parents that I knew would support me even if I decided I needed to drop out which I strongly considered
in my junior year. If I hadn't had that escape hatch, and I thought that this
was my make or break thing, and I had to make it work at Harvard, then I would have been
in a much worse place. So that was the biggest cost for me, it was the psychological distress, it was the constant rejection
that I was unprepared for, a lot of feelings of worthlessness and a lot of things that
felt acutely painful even years afterwards. And I spent the next five years
clawing my way out of that. I spent five years healing and
detaching my sense of value as a person from my achievements, or my level of productivity or
my relative status to others. I had to unlearn the patterns of hierarchy and competition
and chasing recognition from others that are deeply
embedded in schooling and in society, but can make
you absolutely miserable even if you are outwardly successful. And that's why I'm so
adamant about self-care and self-love and mental
health on my channel. I don't wanna make it seem like I had no friends in college or that my experience was
all bad, it wasn't all bad. There were certain
classes, certain people, certain professors that
I really vibed with. The best semester I had was
when I got the heck off campus, and I studied abroad in
Buenos Aires, Argentina, that was through a Harvard program. I wouldn't be doing video production today if it weren't for the encouragement
of my film professors. And even though I didn't really fit into any established social group, I really leaned on the
friends that I lived with. We were all going through
that mess together. And when you've been through
the fire with someone, it bonds you, like y'all
been through it together. So I have a couple of
girlfriends from college who I intend to be friends with for life. There's a big difference between resonating with a few
individuals within the space and resonating with the space
and the culture as a whole. At the same time going through a competitive
cutthroat environment where who you knew and
who liked you mattered just as much as what you did, prepared me well for the
capitalist workforce. Like if I can make it through that level of anxiety and stress
and constant competition, then I can make it anywhere. I have a lot of mental fortitude from going through the fire, like what doesn't kill
you, makes you stronger. You know what I'm saying? Like we're tough now, okay? (chuckling) All right? I'm
not physically fighting anyone and being in such a toxic environment where I never felt like I really belonged, makes me really appreciate
when I do find communities where I feel a sense of belonging and being fully appreciated and valued. So the experience at Harvard has given me a lot of valuable perspective, and I might do a whole other video about what I learned from that experience. Like, yeah, they're the classes, but that place really teaches you a whole different set of skills. The best part for me has
been being of Harvard, not at Harvard. Like I said their study
abroad program is great, the things they run tend
to be very high quality. They have a lot of resources, there are great alumni connections. The association with Harvard and the connection to
other brilliant people who have also been
through Harvard is great, once you get away from Harvard. Once I got out of that culture, the individuals from Harvard
who I've connected with have been really nice and supportive, and willing to help particularly
other alumni of color. I got my first job out of college through an alumni connection. And I have to say that my career
has gone very well so far, like I can't even downplay that. I think that's largely
due to my high performance and people skills. I've been very good at my jobs and I've been able to navigate
those workplace structures, but first you have to get in the door. And I think my ability
to get in the door places has been helped by me having that Harvard credential backing me up. The Harvard name might be the reason why you clicked on this video. It's attractive to people. I think the degree engenders, a certain amount of automatic respect and assumed competence. There are studies that show that a resume with a name that sounds
more stereotypically Black, gets less calls back than that same resume with a name that someone
could assume was white. There is an implicit
bias against Black people and against Black women
and our level of competency and authority is often
inappropriately questioned. But I think when a potential
employer sees the degree and what I would think if I
were hiring a Harvard grad, is that this person is sharp, they're a fast learner,
they're hardworking, and I should be able to trust
them to get the job done. So I think that credential
has been valuable in ways that I'll never fully know because it's about effecting
someone else's perception of who I am, and there's
really no alternative to that. There's no other place that will get you the universal respect,
the worldwide respect that Harvard will. When people send me comments saying that they're in high school
and they've been dreaming about attending Harvard
since they were 13, part of me thinks, "Oh,
I hope you haven't been having nightmares that bad." But I know they're not dreaming about their mental health
careening off a cliff, they're dreaming about the
prestige and the privilege and the power that go
along with that place. And those things are very real
and they're very valuable. So because of that and having
been able to get some distance and some hindsight, I would say that, yes, for me in the end,
Harvard was worth the cost. My 2015 self can rest assured that she has not struggled these
past four years for nothing. The sun is rising. I took a few years to recover mentally, I hung on to the
friendships that mattered. I took the opportunities that came my way and now I'm in a pretty great place. I got plants and everything. If you're new here, I make videos on personal development
and social awareness. So if you're into that,
then consider subscribing. And if you already know and love my work and want to help me to continue, then you can support my videos on Patreon. In the comments let me
know if you've worked on unlearning seeing your
peers as competitors. I know that's an ongoing thing for me. And if you currently go to Harvard, then let me know if it's any better. I mean, maybe as always
remember to live spiritedly and think creatively, and
I will see you next time.
