Baccalaureate address to Harvard Class of 2008

The Memorial Church

Cambridge, Mass.
June 3, 2008

As prepared for delivery

In the curious custom of this venerable institution, I find myself standing before you expected to impart words of lasting wisdom. Here I am in a pulpit, dressed like a Puritan minister — an apparition that would have horrified many of my distinguished forebears and perhaps rededicated some of them to the extirpation of witches. This moment would have propelled Increase and Cotton into a true “Mather lather.” But here I am and there you are and it is the moment of and for Veritas.

You have been undergraduates for four years. I have been president for not quite one. You have known three presidents; I one senior class. Where then lies the voice of experience? Maybe you should be offering the wisdom. Perhaps our roles could be reversed and I could, in Harvard Law School style, do cold calls for the next hour or so.

We all do seem to have made it to this point — more or less in one piece. Though I recently learned that we have not provided you with dinner since May 22. I know we need to wean you from Harvard in a figurative sense. I never knew we took it quite so literally.

But let’s return to that notion of cold calls for a moment. Let’s imagine this were a baccalaureate service in the form of Q & A, and you were asking the questions. “What is the meaning of life, President Faust? What were these four years at Harvard for? President Faust, you must have learned something since you graduated from college exactly 40 years ago?” (Forty years. I’ll say it out loud since every detail of my life — and certainly the year of my Bryn Mawr degree — now seems to be publicly available. But please remember I was young for my class.)

In a way, you have been engaging me in this Q & A for the past year. On just these questions, although you have phrased them a bit more narrowly. And I have been trying to figure out how I might answer and, perhaps more intriguingly, why you were asking.

Let me explain. It actually began when I met with the UC just after my appointment was announced in the winter of 2007. Then the questions continued when I had lunch at Kirkland House, dinner at Leverett, when I met with students in my office hours, even with some recent graduates I encountered abroad. The first thing you asked me about wasn’t the curriculum or advising or faculty contact or even student space. In fact, it wasn’t even alcohol policy. Instead, you repeatedly asked me: Why are so many of us going to Wall Street? Why are we going in such numbers from Harvard to finance, consulting, i-banking?

There are a number of ways to think about this question and how to answer it. There is the Willie Sutton approach. You may know that when he was asked why he robbed banks, he replied, “Because that’s where the money is.” Professors Claudia Goldin and Larry Katz, whom many of you have encountered in your economics concentration, offer a not dissimilar answer based on their study of student career choices since the seventies. They find it notable that, given the very high pecuniary rewards in finance, many students nonetheless still choose to do something else. Indeed, 37 of you have signed on with Teach for America; one of you will dance tango and work in dance therapy in Argentina; another will be engaged in agricultural development in Kenya; another, with an honors degree in math, will study poetry; another will train as a pilot with the USAF; another will work to combat breast cancer. Numbers of you will go to law school, medical school, and graduate school. But, consistent with the pattern Goldin and Katz have documented, a considerable number of you are selecting finance and consulting. The Crimson’s survey of last year’s class reported that 58 percent of men and 43 percent of women entering the workforce made this choice. This year, even in challenging economic times, the figure is 39 percent.

High salaries, the all but irresistible recruiting juggernaut, the reassurance for many of you that you will be in New York working and living and enjoying life alongside your friends, the promise of interesting work — there are lots of ways to explain these choices. For some of you, it is a commitment for only a year or two in any case. Others believe they will best be able to do good by first doing well. Yet, you ask me why you are following this path.

I find myself in some ways less interested in answering your question than in figuring out why you are posing it. If Professors Goldin and Katz have it right; if finance is indeed the “rational choice,” why do you keep raising this issue with me? Why does this seemingly rational choice strike a number of you as not understandable, as not entirely rational, as in some sense less a free choice than a compulsion or necessity? Why does this seem to be troubling so many of you?

You are asking me, I think, about the meaning of life, though you have posed your question in code — in terms of the observable and measurable phenomenon of senior career choice rather than the abstract, unfathomable and almost embarrassing realm of metaphysics. The Meaning of Life — capital M, capital L — is a cliché — easier to deal with as the ironic title of a Monty Python movie or the subject of a Simpsons episode than as a matter about which one would dare admit to harboring serious concern.

But let’s for a moment abandon our Harvard savoir faire, our imperturbability, our pretense of invulnerability, and try to find the beginnings of some answers to your question.

I think you are worried because you want your lives not just to be conventionally successful, but to be meaningful, and you are not sure how those two goals fit together. You are not sure if a generous starting salary at a prestigious brand name organization together with the promise of future wealth will feed your soul.

Why are you worried? Partly it is our fault. We have told you from the moment you arrived here that you will be the leaders responsible for the future, that you are the best and the brightest on whom we will all depend, that you will change the world. We have burdened you with no small expectations. And you have already done remarkable things to fulfill them: your dedication to service demonstrated in your extracurricular engagements, your concern about the future of the planet expressed in your vigorous championing of sustainability, your reinvigoration of American politics through engagement in this year’s presidential contests.

But many of you are now wondering how these commitments fit with a career choice. Is it necessary to decide between remunerative work and meaningful work? If it were to be either/or, which would you choose? Is there a way to have both?

You are asking me and yourselves fundamental questions about values, about trying to reconcile potentially competing goods, about recognizing that it may not be possible to have it all. You are at a moment of transition that requires making choices. And selecting one option — a job, a career, a graduate program — means not selecting others. Every decision means loss as well as gain — possibilities foregone as well as possibilities embraced. Your question to me is partly about that — about loss of roads not taken.

Finance, Wall Street, “recruiting” have become the symbol of this dilemma, representing a set of issues that is much broader and deeper than just one career path. These are issues that in one way or another will at some point face you all — as you graduate from medical school and choose a specialty — family practice or dermatology, as you decide whether to use your law degree to work for a corporate firm or as a public defender, as you decide whether to stay in teaching after your two years with TFA. You are worried because you want to have both a meaningful life and a successful one; you know you were educated to make a difference not just for yourself, for your own comfort and satisfaction, but for the world around you. And now you have to figure out the way to make that possible.

I think there is a second reason you are worried — related to but not entirely distinct from the first. You want to be happy. You have flocked to courses like “Positive Psychology” — Psych 1504 — and “The Science of Happiness” in search of tips. But how do we find happiness? I can offer one encouraging answer: get older. Turns out that survey data show older people — that is, my age — report themselves happier than do younger ones. But perhaps you don’t want to wait.

As I have listened to you talk about the choices ahead of you, I have heard you articulate your worries about the relationship of success and happiness — perhaps, more accurately, how to define success so that it yields and encompasses real happiness, not just money and prestige. The most remunerative choice, you fear, may not be the most meaningful and the most satisfying. But you wonder how you would ever survive as an artist or an actor or a public servant or a high school teacher? How would you ever figure out a path by which to make your way in journalism? Would you ever find a job as an English professor after you finished who knows how many years of graduate school and dissertation writing?

The answer is: you won’t know till you try. But if you don’t try to do what you love — whether it is painting or biology or finance; if you don’t pursue what you think will be most meaningful, you will regret it. Life is long. There is always time for Plan B. But don’t begin with it.

I think of this as my parking space theory of career choice, and I have been sharing it with students for decades. Don’t park 20 blocks from your destination because you think you’ll never find a space. Go where you want to be and then circle back to where you have to be.

You may love investment banking or finance or consulting. It might be just right for you. Or, you might be like the senior I met at lunch at Kirkland who had just returned from an interview on the West Coast with a prestigious consulting firm. “Why am I doing this?” she asked. “I hate flying, I hate hotels, I won’t like this job.” Find work you love. It is hard to be happy if you spend more than half your waking hours doing something you don’t.

But what is ultimately most important here is that you are asking the question — not just of me but of yourselves. You are choosing roads and at the same time challenging your own choices. You have a notion of what you want your life to be and you are not sure the road you are taking is going to get you there. This is the best news. And it is also, I hope, to some degree, our fault. Noticing your life, reflecting upon it, considering how you can live it well, wondering how you can do good: These are perhaps the most valuable things that a liberal arts education has equipped you to do. A liberal education demands that you live self-consciously. It prepares you to seek and define the meaning inherent in all you do. It has made you an analyst and critic of yourself, a person in this way supremely equipped to take charge of your life and how it unfolds. It is in this sense that the liberal arts are liberal — as in liberare — to free. They empower you with the possibility of exercising agency, of discovering meaning, of making choices. The surest way to have a meaningful, happy life is to commit yourself to striving for it. Don’t settle. Be prepared to change routes. Remember the impossible expectations we have of you, and even as you recognize they are impossible, remember how important they are as a lodestar guiding you toward something that matters to you and to the world. The meaning of your life is for you to make.

I can’t wait to see how you all turn out. Do come back, from time to time, and let us know.

大白和小白，ebay和微软

后来查了总价格，在apple网站上买还要交相当高的纽约州州税，送的itouch在ebay上出手只能卖到两百的样子，总的算下来有点麻烦还不是最划算。后来找到了这个。

Live Search Cashback Now Available for ebay “But It Now” Products

总之就是我在ebay上买东西，微软可以给我cash back。ebay上一个1200刀的本本，还250刀，还没有税。用信用卡刷，信用卡公司还有cash back, 出了纠纷可以拒付。
我在ebay上买东西为什么微软要还我钱？这个太诡异了，难道它们是一家的？不管怎么样这个deal相当不错，不只是买本本用的到。
如果在ebay上买d版的ms软件，他家是不是还给cash back?
还有如果在ebay上买一堆电子产品，微软还钱，再拿去在ebay上卖掉，运气好的话一来一去一个可以净赚150刀。如果这个政策短期之内不变，政府不收州税，ebay不涨交易费，绝对是稳赚不赔的。赚邪恶微软的钱不算什么邪恶的想法。我一定不是第一个想到这个主意的人。
说到ebay赚钱，我听说过有个人在amazon,ebay两个网站之间倒卖一种玩具，一年卖了几千个，每个差价10刀。一年卖几千个，可见赚钱贵在不厌其烦。

大白和小白

终于忍不住决定夏天结束以前买个第二个本本。现在2.4G, 2G memory，160G硬盘的macbook白本本1200刀，免费送一个200刀左右的iTouch,返还300刀的现金，算下来只要700刀，基本是 原价的一半。第一个也是正在用的NEC小白本差不多三年前一万三在太平洋买的，只送修过一次，还算表现不错，现在系统也没有太大的问题。但是苹果的诱惑实 在是太大了，vista太次，XP快要买不到了。一个夏天编程下来，苹果的性能和它家的广告一样好。于是决定弃傻瓜windows奔leopard和 unix而去。下个学期就有两个本本了，大白和小白。信用卡里马上快要有钱了，还要买机票，又马上快要穷了……

master vs phd

最近突然又觉得读phd不是什么亏本的事情。做两年analyst读两年mba，和读四年phd时间上差别不大，进公司同样都是associate，具体的工作内容可能有区别。学术方面business school的教授第一年可以pay到200k，一年有三个月的假，比起在投行公司打拼差不多，尤其在市场萧条时期待遇相对好很多。Los Alamos那个二战造原子弹的国家实验室传说是全美人均工资最高的地方，十个人里有九个物理学家，八个EE phd, 七个火箭专家。教授做到终身一辈子就有保障了，银行MD照样有走人的。唯一的缺点是上升空间不大。不过各人喜欢，有人辞掉终身教职去高盛的，也有从街上转学术界的。phd作为学术成就上的最高荣誉，只有百分之一不到的人能够取得这样的成就。phd的称呼都是某某Dr., 这是社会最朴素的对知识的敬仰。phd首先必须是某领域现有知识的专家，同时又必须贡献新的知识。大学里不外乎四类学生，又笨有懒的，笨但是勤奋的，又聪明又懒的，又聪明又勤奋的。又笨又懒的让他们去死吧。勤奋的可以去读硕士。phd就是特别为极度聪明不喜欢有压力的人设置的。Matthew说他们这群人从七十年代就安逸地呆在大学里从来没有毕业过。

immortal tale

I read the book Dracular in high school. It was the first english novel I read in original language. Last time I watched interview with the vampire, I was too young to understand it. I used to think it is a dull one. It is such a great gay movie and a vampire movie. Tom Cruise looks so graceful and delicate , far from what he does in the later mission impossible. Louis was a vampire with a human soul before the death of the girl. The movie has not showed what dark spirit Louis possesses. I guess his is the human soul. Human beings have been long addicted with the tales of vampire. They have immortality, elegance, magic, comfortable lives, almost everything we want. Yet they bear their own desires that cannot be satisfied. Solitary is a curse coming along with immortality, which turns out to be the most tragical and fascinating part of vampire stories.

Also I recommend two other vampire movies, Dracular, the one based on the well-known novel and Underworld, the one of a gorgeous vampire world. I find the following hilarious introduction on vampire.
吸血鬼不收的几种人

１、没有贵族血统的人，往往没有贵族血统的人没有教养素质太差。但是也不排除个人修为交好的平民的加入。
２、是贵族血统但是由于近亲结合的产儿，这类人的智商太低，比如像美国现任总统就很难加入这个行列。
３、不讲究形象的人，由于一旦成为吸血鬼将是不死之身，所以外表和个人卫生是十分重要的。
４、玩弄食物的人、我们吸血的目的不是为了杀生，更不是蔑视生命，就是为了活着，吸血的时候不可贪得无厌，不要像饿牢里出来的囚犯，通常情况下不要杀害人类，除非那人应该去死或者要求去死。但是在带走他们灵魂时一定要让他们快乐。
５、争夺权力和财富的人、记住成为了吸血鬼后时间是永恒的，地位、名利、金钱都是过往云烟，如果贪图地位你就死在哪个权力宝座上吧，如果你留恋金钱那你就让他们和你一起埋葬吧！
６、见异思迁的人，对感情不专一的人。他们会为了一时的性欢做出有害与族群的事，会让很多不地道的人进入吸血鬼的队伍。

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夏日凉萤

我住的地方附近有个天然湖，晚风聚集起萤火虫，原谅我这个城里来的小孩，第一次看到，于是想写诗。小时候握筷子手捏得离筷头很远，我奶奶说这个小孩将来是要出远门的。现在真是应验了，去了离家最远的地方。校内是比facebook还要没有隐私的八卦地方。从一个人的阅读习惯可以看出一个人的品味乃至性格。今天有个人在我的墙上留言说，不同教育制度出来的人就是不一样。我还记得这个人以前盛气凌人的跋扈。很不幸，我的记忆里很好，记仇也记好，只是不说罢了。其实她只说对了一半，不同的人选择不同的教育制度。看过纵横和天下再看校内上的煽情愤青政治言论非常有意思，在中国一般民众哪怕受过高等教育的人也容易非常被煽动，有critical thinking的不多，中国的语文政治历史哲学教育会生产愤青和王MM一点也不奇怪。我在想如果我还在复旦现在在做什么？毕业然后找工作结婚，估计和我妈妈的人生经历没有太大区别。不过我妈妈当年也很出色。