To define graduate students’ time during Covid-19 solely through the lens of academics would be to overlook the numerous details that humanize and differentiate each of their experiences.
The following individuals are not merely Harvard students they are also bakers and entrepreneurs, fathers and daughters, volunteers and Olympic-hopeful rowers. Eight students across five graduate schools sat down virtually with The Crimson to share their stories from an unprecedented year.
Daniel A. Arias, School of Public Health and GSAS
Daniel A. Arias studies the intersection of mental health and epidemiology, as well as health economics. By Courtesy Photo
Daniel A. Arias wishes his scholarship weren’t so relevant to the current moment.
Harvardâs graduate student union met with University administrators last Tuesday to discuss concerns over health and safety, including access to mental health and specialist care, Covid-19 contact tracing, and protections for student workers working remotely.
Per Article 10 of its contract, Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Automobile Workers and the University meet to discuss health and safety at least twice each contract year. Wednesdayâs meeting between HGSU-UAW and Harvard representatives from the Office of Labor and Employee Relations, Harvard University Health Services, and Environmental Health and Safety occurred just days after the union filed an intent to bargain for its second contract.
Weeks after student organizers at Columbia University announced a tuition strike to protest their administrationâs âflagrant disregardâ for proposed university-wide demands, Harvard student activists have not indicated if they will organize a tuition strike of their own.
In a November letter, strike organizers at Columbia called on their administration to lower tuition costs, increase financial aid, dismantle the campus private police force, and halt the Universityâs expansion into West Harlem.
If these concerns were not addressed, more than 2,000 Columbia students were prepared to withhold tuition payments and donations to the university, per the letter. As of Feb. 11, more than 4,400 students have signed a petition in support of the strike.
For Morgan R. Pratt, a Master of Public Policy candidate at the Kennedy School, a daunting obstacle stands between them and their dream of pursuing a career in climate activism following graduation â student loan debt.
âI have a lot of student loan debt and a really high propensity to do something in the public service industry,â Pratt said. âRight now, I have this huge incentive to just follow in the footsteps of my classmates and get a consulting gig â which would help eliminate my student loan debt, but put me into this workspace that creates all these perverse incentives.â
âEssentially, Iâd be exacerbating the problems I really want to solve. Or I can just toil away and put myself in a bad place financially,â they added.