Episode 35

It’s the Harvard Experience, Part I. Pete wants to know what it’s really like to attend the world’s premier university and Paul is happy to take him down memory lane. In popular culture, Harvard looms large as the university of choice for the elite and also as a mass producer of Internet billionaires, Wall Street titans and US Presidents. In this episode, Paul traces his experiences leading up to Harvard, the admissions process and the type of people he grew close to in his years on campus. From his struggles with Quantum Mechanics (and the dawning realization that he wasn’t destined to be a physicist) to his classes with Stanley Hoffmann, Helen Vendler, Cornel West, Martin Feldstein, Sheldon Glashow, Stephen Jay Gould and Alan Dershowitz, Paul takes us inside the daily life of a Harvard undergraduate. Pete keys in on two of Harvard’s biggest assets: the student body and the spirit of possibility that infects almost everyone. Paul reminisces about a place of rich diversity, world-class facilities and access to leaders of industry, politics and academia. From the birth of Facebook and Microsoft to the educations of Bush and Obama, Harvard truly is a place where anything is possible. Tune in next time for Part II of this fascinating conversation, when we talk about the downsides of a Harvard Education…