A Day in the Life of a Harvard PhD Student

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A Day in the Life of a Harvard PhD Student Harvard PhD Student Harvard PhD PhD Student Harvard Student PhD Degree Harvard Business School PhD master degree MBA degree MBA phd graduate

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00:00Welcome to a day in my life at Harvard.

00:09Today I woke up at 7 in the morning.

00:11After waking up, I have breakfast.

00:13I always make the exact same fruit smoothie every single day.

00:21While I drink my smoothie, I always try to get a little bit of work done.

00:24So either I'll read a research paper or I'll do a little video editing.

00:27And this usually takes about an hour.

00:30After having breakfast, I go to the gym.

00:32This usually takes about an hour and 15 minutes.

00:35Normally when I come back from the gym, I work for about an hour.

00:38But today's different because I have to meal prep.

00:40And when I meal prep, I always make chicken and rice.

00:43And this will save me a lot of time.

00:49I make enough food to last me four days.

00:52After I'm done cooking, then I have lunch.

00:54Today it's spaghetti, and this is usually my go-to meal.

00:56Just because it's quick to make.

00:59Now I get ready to go to campus.

01:02One of the best parts of my day is when I get to put on my watch.

01:04I love this watch.

01:06In order to save up for it, I went to go work with my dad in construction.

01:09This was the summer just before I started at Harvard.

01:12The reason this watch means so much to me is because it's a reminder of all that back-breaking work I did with my dad.

01:17And it also taught me a lesson.

01:19It's that hard work is a choice.

01:22Now I pack my backpack.

01:24I only take my laptop and my tablet.

01:26Since I do theoretical physics, I need an iPad to write down math.

01:33And now I'm off to campus.

01:35I live really far from Cambridge, just outside of Boston.

01:38So in order to get to campus, I have to take the T.

01:40The T is the transit system in Massachusetts.

01:56In order to get to campus, you have to cross the Charles River.

01:59This river separates Boston from Cambridge.

02:01The Charles is very important to me.

02:03The reason is, I spent my first two years of undergrad at Boston University.

02:07And I had a dorm that was right on the riverbank.

02:09And I would look over the river, and more than anything else, I wanted to go to school in Cambridge.

02:14So the Charles was the thing that was quite literally separating where I was from where I wanted to be.

02:20And this was a huge source of motivation.

02:22It made me work really, really hard.

02:25This was six years ago.

02:27And in the end, all that hard work paid off because I was able to make it across the river and start my PhD at Harvard.

02:35I get off at Harvard Station.

02:37This station is huge. It even has its own Dunkin' Donuts.

02:41Now we're at Harvard Square.

02:43This is basically the town square around campus.

02:46There's a lot of nice shops and restaurants here.

02:49Harvard Square is right outside of campus.

02:52Right now we're walking past one of the big gates at Harvard.

02:56Before starting my workday, I'm going to head to this waffle shop.

02:59I love these waffles. If you're ever in the area, you have to try one.

03:03And now we're off to work.

03:07We're going to walk in through one of the smaller gates.

03:10This gate leads you to the back of the library.

03:14This is Harvard Yard. This is where all the freshmen live.

03:17And this is John Harvard.

03:22The first thing I do is go to Widener Library.

03:25This library is very historic and very beautiful.

03:31Harvard loves chandeliers.

03:37This is my go-to room. I like it because there's usually not that many people and the desks are pretty big.

03:46Now we get set up.

03:49So now I'm going to work on reading this research paper.

03:52It was sent to me by this postdoc that I work with.

03:55We do research in quantum computing.

03:57Basically, Google made this claim a few years ago that they attained something called quantum supremacy.

04:02Never mind what that is, just know that it's a huge deal in our field.

04:05And there's a few people that are a little skeptical about their claim.

04:08And this postdoc that I work with, he's one of these people.

04:11So he sent me this research paper and he wants me to prove something for him.

04:14But since I'm so new to this problem, I have to spend the majority of my time reading and learning.

04:19Whenever I get tired, I just sit back in my chair and stare up at the ceiling.

04:22That's actually the reason that I love working in this room so much.

04:25The ceiling is gorgeous.

04:27But sometimes if I get a little tired of the scenery, then I'll switch over to the main room.

04:31This is probably the most iconic room at Harvard.

04:33Everybody in here is always focused and working very hard.

04:36I found a nice spot on this armchair and I'm just spending my time reading over this research paper.

04:41But at this point, I'm still very confused about what they're trying to say.

04:45But doing physics is really just about working through that confusion until you figure out the answer.

04:50Now we're off to eat dinner.

04:52I usually eat dinner at Lease. It's where all the research labs are.

04:55And to get there, I walk through the yard.

05:03After dinner, then I go to my office in the physics building.

05:06But first, let me give you a quick tour.

05:08This door at the end of the hallway is my advisor's office.

05:10He established the Millennium Prize problems.

05:12These are seven really hard math problems.

05:14And if you can solve one, you win a million dollars.

05:17The movie Gifted starring Chris Evans is about one of these problems.

05:20This is the most Harvard-looking room we have in this building.

05:23And for whatever reason, it has a piano.

05:29These are the mailboxes for the faculty.

05:31And Shelly here won the Nobel Prize.

05:33These are the mailboxes for the faculty.

05:35And Shelly here won the Nobel Prize.

05:38Now I go to my office.

05:40I usually spend the rest of my day working here.

05:42That blackboard you see in the background is what we use for our group meetings and our talks.

05:46But mostly we use it when we're having discussions with each other.

05:49So the writing you see on it right now is from a discussion I had with a postdoc on something called random quantum circuits.

05:56Our office has a lot of really amazing people.

05:59One of the grad students who sits next to me, he graduated as valedictorian from Columbia.

06:03Another guy in this office, he got his PhD under someone who won the Fields Medal,

06:07which is basically the Nobel Prize for math.

06:10And the guy who sits behind me, he's the one who's arguing with Google.

06:13So when I walk in here, I'm always motivated to work really, really hard.

06:18And now it's time to head back home.

06:24Walking through the yard is a great way to end the day.

06:29And now we're going to catch the T.

06:35We're going to end this story the way it started, over the Charles.

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