When I first applied to be a part of the Harvard Summer School Pre-College Program for the summer of 2021, I had no idea it would become such a meaningful part of my life.
After two summers as a student, I returned as a Pre-College proctor in 2024 and served as an activities coordinator for summer 2025. Each role has played a vital part in shaping not only my academic path but also my personal and professional growth.
One of the things I love most about the Pre-College Program is that students learn more than just course content. Attending the program in person in 2022 was my first taste of independence, which helped immensely in my preparation for college. Between living in a walkable city for the first time, the freedom to build my own routine before and after my 12–3 p.m. class, and remembering to wind down at a reasonable hour without the environmental cues I had always relied on, I learned something new about myself every day at the program. This helped nip bad habits — such as procrastination — in the bud before getting to college.
I was also surprised to discover just how much there is to learn about Harvard outside of academics — I learned how to properly pronounce “Peabody,” saw the incredible glass flowers at the Natural History Museum, and explored the archives of the Schlesinger Library.
Deciding to return to HSS as a proctor was an easy choice. I loved my experience as a student, and I was eager to spend my summer on Harvard’s beautiful campus and give back to a program that was so beneficial to me.
Working with students while balancing administrative responsibilities taught me the behind-the-scenes work that makes a program like HSS possible. This role helped me to discover my passion for student affairs, which has led me to the career path I am on now. Serving as a Pre-College activities coordinator is my first real — though rather unique — experience working in a 9–5 job, and has been the perfect introduction to the world of higher education administration. It also offered me a different lens from the residential life of a proctor, helping me refine the kind of professional roles I may want to pursue in the future.
When I work with students, my biggest hope is that they walk away from the Pre-College Program and HSS learning something new about who they are and what they care about. There are so many unique courses and lectures offered on topics that are seldom accessible at a high school level.
The first course I took as a Pre-College student was Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies — an academic field that had always interested me but was not offered at my high school in suburban Michigan. It was this very course that made me decide to pursue this path of study, and I am now a proud WGSS major at my undergraduate institution.
My second Pre-College course was on Medicine & Society, where I completed a final project on implementing systems to decrease the effects of period poverty on low-income communities. The following school year, I put these ideas into motion when I spearheaded a successful initiative that provided free menstrual products in all bathrooms across my school district for the first time in its history. HSS gave me so many opportunities to explore what I wanted to pursue, and I can only hope incoming students share a similar experience.
In the Activities Office, we see so many students who want to switch their events into the ones their friends are in, whether it is interesting to them or not. If I could give every incoming HSS student a piece of advice, it would be this: have a clear idea of your interests. Don’t be afraid to participate in things that excite you, even if that looks different from everyone else’s path. What serves others may not serve you, and that’s part of the fun!
