Griffin Speaks
In 1984 I found Harvard University a fascinating place to learn. Harvard's
mission is to create knowledge, and to enable students to take the best
advantage of their educational opportunities. I believe that the days
I spent on Harvard's Campus afforded me the opportunity to develop my
full intellectual and human potential.
Harvard inspired me to continue to explore, to be creative and to accept the challenge of leadership. When I arrived at Harvard I was basically already well educated. Matriculating at Morehouse College, University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Boston University School of Law (Graduate Tax Program) prepared me for my days at Harvard.
Harvard University is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. It is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The University was founded sixteen years after the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Harvard has an enrollment of over eighteen thousand-degree candidates.
Harvard includes among its alumni seven American Presidents- John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Rutherford B. Hayes, John Frizgerald Kennedy and George W. Bush. The school has produced 40 Nobel laureates.
When I applied to Harvard Law School I knew that my chances were slim. There was a large pool of qualified applicants. I accepted my rejection in stride, but vowed to one-day experience Harvard.
In 1984 when I arrived at Boston University School of Law I discovered
that I was only about five miles from Harvard University. I decided that
I could experience Harvard by hanging out in Harvard Yard. My classes
at BU were in the late evening so I had all day to study at Harvard. Soon
I would become extremely familiar with the campus.
Everyday, seven days a week I would walk to campus and interact with students
and faculty. Harkness Graduate Center was a popular place to engage students
in debate. It was a wonderful and fascinating experience.
Years later I would meet a young man in the Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport. The young man spoke to me as though he knew me. He said that we were at Harvard together. I smiled and asked him how things were going in his life. I was able to study in Austin Hall, the Ames Courtroom, Griswold Hall and Pound Hall to name a few distinguished Harvard Buildings. I was able to interact with people from all over the world while they strolled through Harvard Yard every day.
My parents and an Aunt visited me one weekend. I took them around Harvard's campus. They were very impressed. My dad noted that it was difficult to distinguish the custodian from the professor. Everybody seemed brilliant. Years later I would take my wife Debra to visit my unofficial alma mater. She was equally impressed .I told my dad that I dreamed of one day accomplishing something so wonderful that I would be asked to return and serve as commencement speaker at Harvard.
Harvard's 380-acre campus was my playground for intellectual stimulation. I felt somewhat guilty acquiring this great education without paying tuition. The majority of the students that I met on the yard were brilliant. I recall the white student that in 1984 believed race did not exist. He told me that all humans are basically 99.9 percent the same genetically. He said that race may be real in a political, social sense, but is totally non-existent biologically. Today, Scientists are confirming what this Harvard Student was telling me in a conversation on the yard twenty years ago.
So my Harvard experience was not a traditional one, but trust me, if given the opportunity you should experience Harvard any way you can!
Greg Griffin is a free lance writer. You can read his previous articles by logging on to www.greggriffin.com
