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