On Thursday, November 17, OCS hosted “How to Find Jobs and Internships in Entertainment.” This program – led by OCS Assistant Directors Gail Gilmore (Assistant Director of Arts, Journalism, Museums, Publishing and Social Services) and Benny Belvin II (Assistant Director of Law, Government, Entertainment, Marketing and Advertising) – focused on the opportunities available and strategies needed to break into this competitive field.

Belvin first addressed the immense variety of careers available in the entertainment business, from financial and business positions to writer and producer jobs. Although these descriptions seem glamorous at first, both counselors explained that the vast majority of jobs in this industry place newly hired employees at the bottom of the office food chain. At agencies, this means the mailroom. “You start in the mailroom, and then you work your way up,” Gilmore said. “It’s something everyone has to do, regardless of where you went to college. As you move up from the mailroom onto someone’s desk, you start to learn more and more about how the industry works.”

Beyond the mailroom, a plethora of exciting positions await for individuals with a wide variety of interests. One sector of the industry is rooted in the business, financial and legal departments. “[Many businesses] need accountants in order to crunch the numbers and manage the large sums of money that go into the entertainment projects,” Belvin said.

Additionally, talent agencies are always looking for lawyers, legal staff, and financial planners. “[They] help agency clients avoid legal issues, make the best deals with studios and firms, and invest their money wisely,” explained Belvin.

Advertising and marketing are also essential aspects of the industry. Because commercials and magazine ads for movies and music releases are compiled by advertising professionals through entertainment firms, there is high demand for agents in this field. “Marketing professionals are needed [to serve] as liaisons between studios and advertisers,” Belvin explained. Furthermore, both Belvin and Gilmore noted the stability of the advertising side of the industry. As there is widespread and frequent turnover of jobs in these areas, advertising and marketing serve as  dependable career paths.

As for finding a job in this business, both counselors acknowledged that this field is extremely competitive and, for many positions, depends heavily on networking. “You have to be entrepreneurial in this industry,” Belvin advised. “Very often, it’s about who you know more than what you know.” Gilmore stressed the importance of joining Harvardwood, a networking organization focused on helping students find jobs in the arts, media and entertainment.

Aside from that, Gilmore also urged her audience to read the magazine Variety every day. “It will help you become familiar with who’s who and what’s happening in the industry,” she explained. “It will enable you to come across as industry-literate during job interviews.” Daily Variety is available online, and OCS also has copies available for student use. Additionally, Gilmore highlighted the importance of  “learning the lingo.” Gilmore suggested looking at “The Hollywood Dictionary,” which offers a list of key vocabulary and is available in OCS’s reading room. Finally, Gilmore reminded her audience that employees likely will not get hired for a job in Los Angeles until they take the initiative to move out to California.

All in all, the program stressed that the entertainment business is one of the most competitive industries around, and that those interested should not expect to be fully compensated right away. “Despite this, there’s rapid advancement for those who are ambitious,” encouraged Gilmore, “even though it’s not a meritocracy in the beginning.”

 — Julia Eger, ‘14

“Follow yourself,” Mark Zuckerberg preached in front of an awed audience of Harvard students on Monday, November 7th.

A Harvard dropout most renowned for his success in following his dreams, Zuckerberg was welcomed warmly back to campus by students and administrators. Over 200 students gathered in Farkas Hall to hear the CEO of Facebook speak during his first return to his alma mater since he left Harvard in 2004. Students first applied to attend the event before being notified if they earned a seat in the lecture; a waitlist of eager students also lingered outside the event hoping they would be able to fill in any empty seats. The vast majority of the audience consisted of students interested in computer science, engineering and applied math.

Sitting alongside Zuckerberg on stage were Mike Schroepfer, the vice-president of engineering at Facebook, Jocelyn Goldfein, a director of engineering at Facebook, as well as CS50 instructor David Malan who facilitated discussion throughout the conversation.

Much to the audience’s happiness, Zuckerberg spent a considerable amount of time reminiscing about his time at Harvard. A resident of Straus and then Kirkland, he spoke a lot about his strong inclination to experiment with programming, and to work incessantly on different projects until one clicked. “I just like making stuff,” he said. “When I was here, I was really just focused on hacking together a bunch of things and seeing what worked.”

While at Harvard, Zuckerberg built several websites that did not catch on in the same colossal way that his Facebook project did. These sites ranged from a “Course Match” website to help students plan and share their shopping week courses to a website called “6 Degrees of Harry Lewis,” which linked people appearing in the Crimson by finding their connections to the most frequently mentioned person: computer science professor Harry Lewis. He encouraged his audience to experiment with building different programs as well, and never to fear making mistakes. “Learning to engineer is kind of like riding a bike,” he advised. “You pick up different skills on the way; you learn something new with each project you do.” While he acknowledged that Facebook wrestles with bugs and problems in itself, users put up with them because the site is “fundamentally giving them value.”

In the beginning, Zuckerberg did not intend for Facebook to become a company – he simply thought it was a cool idea, and was a project he was interested in making for his friends. After divvying out roles to his two roommates, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, Zuckerberg was able to promote the website until the project grew too big to contain at Harvard. “It was the momentum that kept us growing,” he said. “The users really carried us.” Since its conception, Facebook usage has grown exponentially: besides its increased user count growing to over 800 million people in the past 7 years, the average amount of information that a given person shares on Facebook is doubling every year.

Throughout his speech, Zuckerberg encouraged his undergraduate audience members to take chances in following their passions. In college, he and his friends would always muse over innovative ideas and what they thought was going to happen with social networks, but never expected that they would be the ones to accomplish the change. “Who are we, college students, to think we could build this?” they asked themselves. In retrospect, Zuckerberg said that they “thought the big companies – like Microsoft, Google, Amazon – would be the ones to take charge, but they just never got around to it.” Even Schroepfer acknowledged the incredible nature of Zuckerberg’s success: “It is shocking to think that one person couldn’t have an impact on the world, but then realize that they really, really could.”

While Zuckerberg’s return held sentimental value because of his Harvard connection, his visit was primarily a recruiting trip. He spoke of the Facebook office as one in which innovation is not only encouraged: it is necessary. According to Zuckerberg, Palo Alto’s Facebook office is a “culture of hacking and prototyping” in which engineers are constantly experimenting with new prototypes – experiments that often end up creating the best features on the website. Although the Facebook website caters to a similar amount of customers as other large internet websites, their team is much smaller, consisting of only about 700 engineers. What’s their criteria for hiring? For one, Schroepfer said that engineers need to be “excited about something in their lives, ideally about building things.” Aside from that, Schroepfer and Zuckerberg both agreed on the importance of being able to recognize the hardest leverage of a project to work on, and to figure out the problem in order to create an efficient final project.

One student asked Zuckerberg what he would be doing right now were he not the frontrunner of this billion-dollar company. “When I was at Harvard, I went to one of Bill Gates’ talks. The advice that he gave was that everyone should go take time off to work on something,” Zuckerberg replied. “Harvard is great because you can take as much time off as you want.” With this in mind, Zuckerberg said he might have gone back to finish his career at Harvard if the Facebook endeavor had failed.

“After all, my little sister made a bet that she’d finish college before me,” he laughed. “Oh yeah, she finished already. And it’s okay. I gave her the fifty dollars.”

— Julia Eger, ‘14

    
    
     On Friday, October 21, OCS hosted its “AMP Expo” for students interested in careers in advertising, marketing, and public relations. The office buzzed all afternoon with curious students and animated representatives from over a dozen companies, speaking about job and internship opportunities in the communication field.
      Before the Expo began, seven representatives from various companies sat on a panel and spoke about the different aspects of advertising, marketing, and public relations. Panelists included Dave Lipson, an executive at Schwartz MSL; Vanessa Apicemo, manager of technology practice at Burson-Marsteller; Trang Phan, a business intelligence analyst at Wayfair; Jackie Coffey, a sales planner at Pandora Radio; Kevin Kinkor, the head of staff at Pandora Radio; Lina Valov, a brand manager at Procter & Gamble, and Alice Bertholin-Rice, a human resources employee at Oglivy & Mather.
      The panelists first addressed the required background needed to find a job in communications. Where some professions demand a specific college degree, communications focus more on the practice of certain talents than the transcript itself. All panelists agreed that it is more important for a candidate to be able to work successfully in a specific environment than to have credentials without the ability to put their learned skills to use.
      What are the necessary skills for a communications employee to have? Primarily, a marketing position, according to Lipson, revolves around “tell[ing] the truth persuasively.” Lipson emphasized the importance of a certain skill-set: being able to write well and to think strategically. “It’s a fast moving profession,” Lipson said, “so you first need to be able to think in a fast moving environment.”
      Several other panelists echoed the importance of story-telling. For one, Apicemo focuses on conveying straightforward “stories” in her marketing strategy. “It’s important to be able to tell a story in a way that even my grandma can understand it,” she said. Maintaining simplicity while also morphing one’s strategy in relation to the contemporary macro- and micro-trends is imperative to the public relations world. “In this profession, you really need to have a finger on the pulse of what’s going on at the time and be able to react strategically,” she stressed.
     For panelist Phan, it is important to tell a story in a persuasive way as well as to understand one’s customers. “The worst thing is to market something to someone that’s completely irrelevant,” she said, because then the entire marketing effort is useless. Phan emphasized the importance of recognizing what a customer wants and how to make a product seem appealing to him or her.
     However, working in marketing and advertising is not all about the customers: much of the position revolves around team projects and group efforts in the office. “Everything is very collaborative,” Apicemo explained, “on both local and global teams.” Kinkor highlighted the work dynamic of an individual being “only one piece of a much larger picture.”
     With the clear emphasis on collaboration in this industry, all panelists recognized the importance of showing leadership and motivation in an interview for a job in these fields. “We want to know you’re passionate and bent on succeeding,” saidKinkor. In terms of interview strategy, Kirkland-Rice stressed the ability to “manage people and be forceful in a changing work environment.” 
     In their short hour of sitting on the panel, these professionals in the advertising and marketing worlds brought out one of the most important aspects of the industry: the many different skill-sets it takes to be successful in these fields. Most of all, said Valov, “we all need to be creative, in order to bring out the best that every brand has to give.”   

— Julia Eger, ‘14

On October 12, students gathered at OCS to listen to a panel of artists share their personal experiences in their respective creative fields. The panel consisted of a wide range of artists, including Dorothy Aufiero, a film producer at Red Hawk Entertainment; Diane Borger, a producer at the ART Theater in Cambridge; Mark Nolan-Schou, a professional ballet dancer; and Livingston Taylor, a singer/songwriter and professor at the Berklee College of Music.

Many of the panelists brought up their initial uncertainties in career choices: the majority had little idea of what they had wanted to do for a living, but ultimately ended up where they are now through both persistence and trial-and-error. This is certainly the case for Aufiero, who had no idea what career to choose when she was in college: she only knew that she “wanted to get into the entertainment business.” After landing a desk job at Channel 38, she worked her way up through the office until she was working at a higher level and more directly with the television production itself, before quitting that job to work in the movie business. She emphasized that her success in the field came from mostly from personal dedication to any position she held in the office. “As my grandfather says,” she quoted, “You have to put your heart into your job.”

Another panelist, Borger, spoke of her passion for theater and how such a devotion to an art can lead to a career in entertainment. She had “always wanted to work in the theater,” and ultimately ended up as a theater producer. According to her, careers in theater depend heavily on “luck and [having] prepared minds meet opportunity.” Perhaps surprisingly to some students, she advised her audience not to worry about having an undergraduate theater degree, because theater is such a “practical industry” that degrees do not carry much weight. Instead, she urged her audience to focus on doing as “many things as [they] can,” in terms of extracurricular theater activities.

Borger also highlighted one of the pitfalls of the industry – its exclusivity. “The arts is a people industry,” she recognized, “so it really is all about who you know.” While she recognized this characteristic as a negative one, she told her audience it is best to simply embrace the fact, and take advantage of the vast opportunities and connections available at Harvard.

Panelist Nolan-Schou also shared his story of his career in the arts, although his is more unconventional. He started ballet as an accident when he was very young, after his mother signed him up for classes, and after training for his whole childhood he dropped out of high school to train more seriously. As he has dedicated most of his life to dancing, he knows the industry inside and out. “Being a dancer or any kind of performing artist is so physically and mentally demanding,” he pointed out, “because we put blood, sweat, and tears into it. You’re naked to the world when you’re on stage, so it’s hard to keep your emotions out of it.” Aside from these strenuous challenges, Nolan-Schou raised the issue that there is “no money in the arts,” and so his is not a particularly lucrative profession. But why does he continue to dance? “When you’re dancing out there on stage,” Nolan-Schou spilled, “you’re untouchable. And that’s the most incredible feeling anyone can have.”

Working in entertainment is no easy feat, but the personal rewards consistently outweighed the costly prices for each of these panelists. As Aufiero eloquently stated, “Nothing is easy, no matter what career you choose; but if you always believe in yourself you can really do anything.”

—Julia Eger, ‘14

OCS Student Blogger: Exploring Careers in Brand Management

This past Wednesday, OCS hosted an event that focused on careers in brand management. The program revolved around a panel of five professionals who each had a unique level of experience in the field of brand management – working at companies ranging from IDEO, Digitas, and Arnold Worldwide – but all shared an all-encompassing overview of the industry as a whole.

While perhaps most people define brand management in terms of marketing, Lauren Murphy ’11, who currently works as a business strategy analyst for Arnold Worldwide, simply put that there’s “no straightforward answer to define what brand management is,” but for a good reason: there are so many aspects by which to encapsulate this industry that it’s impossible to limit its definition to just one facet. Eric Korsh, VP at Digitas, described his position as a “combination of advertising, marketing, and filmmaking,” adding that he likes his career “because there are so many different components.”

Scott Karambis, VP at Sapient, highlighted the creative aspect of the field. “[One] has to find ways to create an idea that doesn’t exist yet,” later quipping, “and how does a person get people to pay for that?” He characterized marketing as “the least ‘buttoned-up’ place,” where “the ability to communicate precisely and clearly is the most crucial talent to have.” Panelist Michael Hendrix, location director and associate partner at IDEO, had similar advice but stressed the importance of “creating authentic relationships and stories” with clients, a gesture after which “everything else falls into place.”

Several panelists referenced the evolving and expanding nature of the industry, especially with the recent additions of social media and the endless opportunities for advertising and marketing available on the internet. “It’s an ever-changing idea, with a lot of opportunities,” Korsh said. Karambis referenced the industry as one of “high turnover,” but suggested that if one “like[s] change and evolution than [one] will like brand management.”

The panelists also discussed the frustrating aspects of the industry that they had been faced with so far. Murphy lamented that she had seen many companies limit themselves in terms of digital and social media, when she had “wanted to see [them] push so much farther.” Another panelist described her exasperation in being unable to sell an idea to a client when she “know[s] it is right for them and will help them grow.”

Where exactly does a college graduate begin in trying to break into the world of brand management? All panelists agreed there is no “right” or even “suggested” path to involve oneself in the field. Murphy said she found her way into brand management through a series of unpaid internships throughout her college years that ultimately guided her into the position she has now. She emphasized the importance of the internship experience as well as the opportunities for networking that internships provide.

Catherine Sheehan, associate director at Allen & Gerritsen, discussed her journey into brand management, and highlighted the surprising things one might personally gain in a any job position. “It’s interesting that what doesn’t exactly work for you as an individual sometimes ends up getting you to where you want to be,” she mused, highlighting the nebulous nature of the job market: one can never know when the spark of a perfect job opportunity is going to hit or where it’s going to come from.

—Julia Eger, ‘14

This past Thursday afternoon, Chris Colbert – CEO and founder of advertising agency Holland-Mark – visited Harvard to give a lecture entitled “Branding You.” This program, which Colbert has delivered for three consecutive years at Harvard, invited its audience to figure out their personal marketing tactic in order to be the best candidate for a job position and ultimately obtain the job position they want. This year, Colbert’s audience was comprised mostly of Extension School students, although a few Undergraduates were present as well.

Colbert began by acknowledging the economic recession currently facing our country, and the incredible unemployment rate that right now is the worst it’s been since World War II. Colbert predicted that the unemployment rate is going to remain at this level for several years to come, which makes the job market as competitive as ever. While he recognized that there are “lots of people looking for jobs and not that many jobs out there,” he stated that there are “millions of opportunities, and it all depends on how well [one] establishes [his or herself] in the minds of the prospective employer.”

Such was the platform of Colbert’s program: “everything is a brand.” In terms of “branding” oneself to appeal to a market, Colbert first implored his audience to know one’s market: what kind of place do you really want to work? After establishing a set target with which his audience wants to reach their “brand,” Colbert moved on to discuss the best ways to distinguish oneself in the eyes of the employer. He suggested “taking the simple and making it compelling:” finding the one simple characteristic that makes an individual special and different, and creating an uncomplicated label that captures that distinction. “If you don’t create a “one simple thing” for the market, the market will create one for you,” he warned, noting that “fire-housing” one’s qualities will cause confusion and disinterest in the intended audience.

Colbert also stressed the importance of working the network, and encouraged his audience to reach out to friends and acquaintances on LinkedIn and Facebook. While marketing oneself well is important, using connections to find employment is crucial: “the real level of distinction in this world is who you know” he claimed.

Along with these factors, Colbert also highlighted the necessity of a fine-tuned resume, and the importance of interview preparation. “Prepare to present,” Colbert instructed,  “and don’t be afraid to practice interview role-play with friends before your real interview.” Not only is it important to present oneself well, however: it is also imperative to be well-informed about the company for whom one is interviewing. Asking probing and insightful questions at the end of an interview, he stated, is integral in showing the prospective employer that an individual is interested and educated about the business.

Most of all, Colbert entreated his audience to “be brave” when applying and interviewing for jobs. “Doing things you actually hate to do, like role-playing with friends on how to interview, is where the real game changers are. You have to walk into the interview believing you can do it – and you can, as long as you do the work to prepare for it.”

Colbert’s captivating speech left his audience with an entirely new perspective on the job market and specific strategies on how to conquer it.

—Julia Eger, ‘14

On Wednesday, September 21, OCS sponsored an event entitled “The New Journalism” in which a panel of four individuals with careers in journalism discussed the future of the ever-evolving industry. Sitting on the panel were Maria Balinska, founder and editor of Latitude News (an online international news service); Joshua Benton, the director of the Neiman Journalism Lab (a research and reporting center about journalism); Terry Byrne, a correspondent for the Boston Globe; and Michael Fitzgerald, an independent journalist.

The program itself brought up the changing industry and the repercussions of the metamorphosis: in an age in which teenagers can author a post on Wikipedia and call themselves “journalists,” is the industry on its way to complete destruction?

Traditional journalism has, of course, been interrupted by the internet. But the explosion of online media has created more – yet very different – opportunities for writers. And according to the Census Bureau, the number of people who consider themselves writers or journalists has increased. However, this increase of online media shifts the playing field of the industry, and now the edge in the industry goes to more independent writers and entrepreneurs, rather than what we would consider traditional journalists, like writers for the New York Times.

Byrne, an art writer, acknowledged that the decline in traditional newspaper means a decline in those traditional jobs, and that online journalism is naturally less lucrative for writers. However, Byrne also called attention to the freedom now allotted to all writers. Historically, journalists have been bound to covering stories dictated by their superiors in the office, but now writers have the liberty to create their own blogs and website in which they can choose their own subject material. “If you can approach a blog or website with the same diligence as any reporter covering any beat, and make relationships with your followers on your beat, then it’s just as good as having followers of a newspaper,” Byrne said. She also praised the unique addition of video to news stories and reviews, saying that it had been a missing sector in traditional print that can now easily be included in online postings.

A few of the members of the panel acknowledged another way in which the view of the “typical journalist” has evolved. In this day and age, they said, there are many more careers where journalism is a part but not a whole job – the number of people who can have journalism as their sole profession has decreased over the past few years. Benton and Fitzgerald both agreed that blogs and websites over time will move away from having one person control all aspects of a given publication – because an individual is not necessarily going to be talented with writing, photography, and filming, so those different media tasks will likely be broken up between a team of people. Fitzgerald also mentioned that it is much easier to be an editor these days than to be a journalist: editors are paid much more, even though journalism may appear to be a more glamorous career.

In terms of preparing for the future, all panelists agreed upon the importance of honing internet skills, because everything is going to be related to content that is online. With this knowledge of the changing tides in mind, Fitzgerald implored his audience to take control of their futures: “if you have an entrepreneurial bone in your body,” he said, “you should build it up and run with it.” 

 —Julia Eger, ‘14

About fifty undergraduate and graduate students gathered in a room in the Science Center on Thursday afternoon to hear director Gordon Jones speak about Harvard’s new innovation lab.

What exactly is the Harvard i-lab? According to Gordon Jones, the director of the project and a former professor at Bentley College, the lab will – in short – be an “on-campus center for students to learn, do and grow their innovative and entrepreneurial ideas.”

But the lab, located on Western Ave in Allston, seems like it will be doing much more than that. With its 30,000 square foot complex – complete with classrooms, workshop and conference rooms (as well as a basketball court, kitchen and gaming zone) – as well as the impressive events it has lined up already, the i-lab is looking like it could be Harvard’s next hotspot. Starting November 18^th, the lab will begin its “limiting opening phase” – which means it will be only offering some events, workshops and day-use workspace; by the spring semester, the i-lab will be in full swing. Jones is also offering a trip to Silicon Valley over J-term for 36 students who express special interest in entrepreneurship.

Upon opening, the lab plans to focus on entrepreneurship and innovation related programming, such as classes and faculty projects; practicum and expert resourcing, like training workshops, experts-in-residence, Harvard innovation partner firms and mentorship; and experiential events, especially speakers and i-lab original programming. Harvard is even planning to offer its first undergraduate class on entrepreneurship at the lab itself.

With support from Harvard College, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Business School, Harvard Law School, the School for Engineering and Applied Science, and the Harvard Kennedy School, Jones emphasizes he wants the i-lab to be a place to unify students from across the university, and a place in which students from all schools can learn from and help each other.

On a grander scale, Jones also expects the i-lab to deliver the best of Harvard’s knowledge and network. “Universities often risk losing relevance with the world at large,” he explains, emphasizing that the i-lab will be a place in which students can also reach out to the outside world.

Jones encourages “any student, with or without experience in entrepreneurship” to come out to the lab, but he also stresses the importance of innovation in itself. “Students ask, ‘What can the i-lab do for me?’ And while there will be programming and things you can join, we’re looking for people who will be innovative and proactive – not just reactive.”

While Jones recognizes that the distance of the Allston campus might deter Harvard undergrads from trekking out to the i-lab, he says that his team built a shuttle stop right next to the i-lab and that Harvard will provide transportation services between the i-lab and Harvard Square and Longwood campuses to procure easier access for all students. MBTA bus and subway service will also provide access to the facility.

Jones not only left his audience with an itch to see the grand opening of the i-lab, but also with interesting take on Harvard’s culture on a larger scale. “Failure isn’t always celebrated at Harvard,” he notes. “The culture is that failure is a negative thing. But in entrepreneurship, failure needs to be embraced – because it happens all the time. We need to change our view of that as a community.”

—Julia Eger, ‘14

 

The basement of the Gutman Conference Center was abuzz this past Friday afternoon with study abroad programs. Tables of representatives from Harvard-sponsored programs, foreign universities, and Harvard-approved study abroad programs lined the walls of the room, advertising themselves and answering questions for curious students who hoped to spend either a semester or summer abroad in a foreign country.

The programs were organized around the room based on whether they were Harvard-run or Harvard-approved, but that criteria was certainly not the only characteristic that separated each program from another. One organization, the School for Field Studies, which focuses on environmental field studies in six countries, boasted its tantalizing opportunities to do field work in exotic locations – like marine biology research in Turks & Caicos – with students from over 300 different colleges. The School for Field Studies also offers programs where students study abroad (and receive college credit) while working in public health and the environment in Kenya, natural resource management and rainforest research in Australia and New Zealand, and sustaining tropical ecosystems in Costa Rica.

A few tables over, students could speak with representatives from American University in Cairo, which offers a very different type of study abroad program. At the American University in Cairo, students have more of a typical college classroom experience: they in the enroll directly in the university, alongside students from over 400 other colleges around the world, and take classes (taught in English) in a unique foreign setting.

However, many other programs advertised at the fair focus on language immersion and class instruction in foreign countries. Several of these programs are offered through the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) – like the very popular Harvard College Study Abroad programs in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Peru. Maya Espada ’12, who studied abroad in Chile through a DRCLAS program last spring, explained that other DRCLAS programs also “offer internships which extend to practically every country in Latin America.” Several of Espada’s friends have found semester or summer long jobs through the DRCLAS in “virtually any office or organization with which Harvard has a connection,” such as “NGOs, women’s groups, health organizations, and hospitals.”

The vast majority of the organizations present at the fair offered both semester and summer long programs, and students seemed to express polarized opinions about going abroad during the semester versus the summer. Sarah Hansen ’14, a prospective study abroad student, said that she had “always wanted to go abroad because of the amazing and rewarding experiences” she imagined she would garner from spending time in a foreign country, but was looking specially for a summer program because she was “scared she would feel like she was missing too much” being away from Harvard during the regular school year.

However, other students felt that the incredible experiences reaped from their semester abroad outweighed any Harvard-square homesickness. Meg Barrow ’13, a student adviser for the Office of International Programs and a Pre-Med Psychology concentrator, spent last spring in Alicante, Spain, taking Spanish language and culture classes at the University of Alicante. “I couldn’t have had a better experience,” she said, adding that her favorite part of her experience was “life with a host family, as well as the complete language immersion, both of which I couldn’t have found at Harvard.” Where some students, like Hansen, fear the social consequences of being away from campus during the semester, Barrow did not find that to be an issue. “It was great to go abroad my sophomore spring,” she explained, “because I came back with two full years left to make up any time I lost being away from my friends.”

The fair provided an outstanding opportunity for study abroad veterans, like Barrow, to share their sensational stories and experiences first-hand with prospective study abroad students as they perused the plethora of unique programs and opportunities, which they otherwise might not have known were available to them.

—Julia Eger, ‘14