by Jason Hill
Disclaimer. I naturally gravitate towards uncertainty and risk with the questions of what if and why not, so I often hesitate to promote my approach towards disruption for other people because everyone’s risk tolerance and actual consequences are different. However, even knowing what I know now, I would choose to spend my time and resources at the Harvard Graduate School of Education again.
As such, my acceptance into the Harvard Graduate School of Education created an opportunity for disruption. I was living and working in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the time. I had a full-time job in higher education. I was already taking classes at a tier 1 research institution, and I had a small support system in place. All in all, it was more of a disruption to leave than to stay, so when I visited campus at the Admitted Students Day in March 2023, I was skeptical. I made it a task to temper my tendencies towards optimism, to read the fine print and question the details.
The result of my visit was confirmation against my skepticism, though. My visit resulted in confirming that the Harvard Graduate School of Education was a place where my assumptions and ideas had the best opportunity to develop. My visit was a confirmation that the people at the Harvard Graduate School could support innovation because they were already doing it. Each of us were already innovating, exploring, and achieving in vastly different ways. I realized that the opportunity at hand was the chance to combine all of our lived experiences, skills, aptitudes, ideas, and global perspectives in a year’s time, while being supported by world-class faculty, resources, and staff.
To me, that was enough confirmation to say yes and believe that I could figure out the details along the way. It does take time and effort, but the experiences gained could have only been possible by taking a chance and being a part of this community. With that, I advocate for incoming students to balance their time between being strategic and goal orientated and being available enough to participate in the serendipity that will occur in a whirlwind of a year.
Jason Hill is a student in the LDIT program.
HGSE Admissions Blog 