A Harvard student describes her typical week

Brian Snyder/Reuters

This post by Yehong Zhu originally appeared on Quora as an answer to the question "How do Harvard students spend their time?" 

As a rising junior, I’m already nostalgic that I’m halfway done with college—so this was a nice opportunity to reflect on what I’ve been doing at Harvard.

Rather than input my life into Google calendar [1], I use a paper calendar—one of those faux-leather-bound, Veritas-embossed academic planners that you can buy at the Coop [2] for six or seven bucks.

I take a ruler and split each day into six sections to keep myself organized, then write down everything I have to do that week.

There’s something oddly satisfying about penning things in by hand—checking off a box if I’d completed it, crossing it out if I hadn’t, and being able to physically flip through the days I’ve spent in school.

Here’s a random but representative week out of my calendar.

Brian Snyder/Reuters

Qualifiers:

• I am highly social by nature and prefer to be busy, so my calendar reflects my preferences, not necessarily those of a typical Harvard student. [3]
• I am concentrating in political philosophy, so my academic perspective is geared more towards the social sciences/humanities rather than STEM.
• I am involved in a generous number of extracurricular activities at any given time, so I am regularly running around campus trying not to be late for back-to-back scheduled meetings.
• I like attending interesting public events, which are usually well-advertised and open to the Harvard community. But it depends on how free I am.
• While I don’t schedule in time to study (perhaps I should), the unscheduled space in my calendar is typically spent studying, checking emails, planning the rest of my week, or preparing for meetings, projects, and daily tasks.
• I sleep very little during the school year, which is how I have time to do all this stuff. 
• As you can see, the bulk of my scheduled time wasn’t taken up by classes, but by out-of-school activities and events.

Now that that’s established, let’s take you through my week, shall we?

Academic:

• Last semester I took a standard workload of four academic courses.
• Since I am a joint concentrator [4] in Philosophy and Government, I had to take a sophomore tutorial for each concentration—Philosophy 97 and Government 97, respectively. My two other classes were fairly standard Gov requirements: one was Gov 10, an introduction to political theory; the other was Gov 50, a political research methods class.
• With three essay-based classes and one pset [5] class, I spent most of my time completing readings and writing papers, with some weeks substantially busier than others, depending on where my essay deadlines fell.
• Mondays through Wednesdays were fairly light. Thursdays were completely packed with classes. Fridays were free, which was nice. This week I spent 10.5 hours in lecture or section, and skipped one lecture to finish a problem set that was due for that class. Generally I’d spend 12 hours a week in class.
• This week I’d probably spent between 30–40 hours finishing a take-home midterm for Gov 10, which I did very well in but took a late day to complete. I’d also spent roughly 10 hours finishing the Gov 50 pset, and 10 more hours on readings for my other classes. (Grand total? 50–60 hours.)
• In terms of workload, this was a pretty heavy week for me (particularly with midterms and a pset due), though finals can be an order of magnitude more brutal. A lighter academic week might be 20–30 hours or less.

Extracurricular:

• During this particular week, I had commitments for five extracurricular organizations I’m involved in—more than most students, standard for me.
• Her Campus, an online magazine for collegiate women: I was busy writing up this article, which was published the following week. I also went to our weekly meeting on Sunday evening, where we talk about pitches and eat yummy snacks.
• The Undergraduate Council, student government: While I couldn’t attend a rescheduled general council meeting on Monday, I went to my committee meeting on Thursday, a UC bonding social on Friday, and a normally-scheduled general council meeting on Sunday evening.
• Club Lacrosse, recreational lacrosse: We had practice and a mixer with boy’s club basketball, only one of which I attended because I had midterms. (Guess which one?)
• Harvard Square College Consulting, the company I founded to provide resources to college-bound high school seniors worldwide: I had a few calls with clients that week, as well as some backend work to keep the whole thing running. (Stating the obvious, but startups are hard work!)
• The Harvard Political Review, a nonpartisan quarterly political magazine: I was conducting research to write up this article on venture capital—hence the “perfect pitch” event at the Harvard innovation lab.
• I am currently (or was formerly) involved in almost too many clubs at Harvard to keep track of, including a job, a term-time internship, a sorority, a number of pre-professional organizations, an intellectual dinner group, etc. So while the above lineup is representative, it’s also subject to change.
• In general it’s fairly easy to tailor your involvement in clubs each semester depending on your interests, though Harvard students typically become committed to a few clubs (1–3) later on in their college careers as they accumulate leadership positions, dropping the rest.

Social:

• Looking back, I’d scheduled 8 meals with friends, four of which I ended up attending; the others were (hopefully!) rescheduled to another week. I usually eat two meals a day—and I love eating with friends, it’s a great way to catch up—but sometimes I’d skip a meal if I was pressed for time.
• Outside of my extracurricular commitments, I wasn’t able to make it to most of the other events I had written down, presumably because I was so swamped with midterms. A notable exception was the Expressions dance show that Saturday evening, a student-produced extravaganza that usually sells out every year—I had to go to support one of my best friends!
• I’d penned in 8 parties between Friday and Saturday, four of which I ended up attending. I enjoy my weekends, and I try to go out twice a week as a way to relieve stress. Otherwise I’d probably go crazy.
• 8 parties is definitely not the norm for Harvard, and I wasn’t planning to go to all of them—but it’s definitely nice to have options. That weekend happened to be particularly lit, as it was the week after spring break.
• I’d had a number of very late nights, both that week and in general, to the point where I’d dread seeing the sun rise from the window of Lamont [6]. Yet on Sunday I remember attempting to work at a dining hall late at night, only to meet a friend I hadn’t seen in a while and talk until 5 am.
• It was a conversation that I look back upon fondly, one of those college moments you remember long after you forget all of the other stuff you had on your to-do list. A little reminder that no matter how busy I may be, to make time for the people in my life that I care about, because these are the moments I’ll cherish most.

Footnotes:

[1] Pretty much everyone I know uses Gcal, but I prefer to be contrarian.

[2] The Coop is the official bookstore for Harvard and MIT. It makes a killing every year by selling Harvard-branded gear at sky-high profit margins to tourists, students, and parents alike, all happily contributing to their bottom line.

[3] That said, it’s not atypical for a Harvard student, either.

[4] Harvard speak for “double major,” plus a combined thesis.

[5] Harvard speak for “problem set.” We have a lot of weird jargon.

[6] Lamont is our 24-hour library, famous for its fluorescent lighting and air of desperation. I basically live here.

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