hi I'm John fish I'm a student at
Harvard and actually just a few weeks
ago I wrapped up my freshman year there
since then I've been taking a little bit
of time to reflect on what I've learned
and I decided to make a video on it so
these are the top five things that I
learned during my freshman year at
Harvard
the first lesson school doesn't matter
that much to me at least it sounds a
little bit absurd for a Harvard student
to say that school doesn't matter that
much I mean obviously I've cared a lot
about school and I continue to care a
lot about school but the way that I got
to this realization was about halfway
through the school year I was doing an
exercise where I wrote down the top five
things that I spend the most time on and
my top five values and then for each of
the things that I spent the most time on
I just tried to see how many of my
values it actually enriched and so for
me at the time school was the number one
thing that I was spending my time on and
yet of my values it enriched the least
of the top five things like making
YouTube videos enriched far more of my
values and so I made a conscious effort
to shift my energy away from school and
towards other things see don't get me
wrong like I still care about school and
I still tried in school but the 80/20
rule really does apply that is I can do
20% of the school work and get 80% of
the reward maybe not that extreme but
pretty close and so I decided to do that
instead of aiming for hundreds in all of
my things I ain't for you know high 80s
low 90s and as a result I was able to
free up so much time in my schedule for
things like making YouTube videos and
extracurriculars and I was a happy and
arguably more successful person because
of it the second lesson prioritizing
time is hard especially if you want to
be happy so I mean I've always known
that balancing time is hard but I hadn't
really experienced it in practice until
the past year see previous to this I
didn't really have to dedicate that much
time to school or text or curriculars
that much I had a lot more free time but
in the past year my extracurriculars
have been probably 30 to 40 hours a week
and about the same with school so on an
average week I'm looking at 60 to 80
hours of commitment
and then you think about okay how many
hours are there actually in a week and I
try and sleep a fair bit because I feel
like I'm not really a normal person if I
don't so I try and get eight to nine
hours of sleep so that's like 63 hours
gone in a week of the hundred and sixty
eight so and you're looking at what 20
hours 25 but I'm going to spend about 21
of them eating so I have like four hours
left and I mean it's napkin math
obviously but the reality is I didn't
have that much free time and if I want
to do all the things that give him joy
and enjoyment in my life then I needed
to get really good at balancing time so
it was doable I did it for a year but it
was tough and over the year actually I
developed a few methods for balancing
this time and I'm gonna make entire
videos about this later but the main the
main way that I did this was using my
growth book which if you haven't seen
before it's a notebook that I created I
put on Amazon it's now sold out and I've
ordered more and they're coming in so
stay tuned for that if you want to be
updated when they do come in so you make
sure you don't miss out make sure you
subscribe to my newsletter but yeah I
created this method of daily planning
and it really didn't rich my life like a
lot so that was a that was a huge lesson
for me to learn this year was how to how
to plot my days efficiently so that I
get maximum enjoyment out of them so
that I'm the happiest person that I can
possibly be the third lesson I want to
help people with my life so if you asked
me at the beginning of the year what my
life goal was I don't think I could tell
you and while I'm still not sure now
things feel a little bit more defiant
see I realized that with YouTube what
really got me going it was less than
money in the views and the subscribers
those are nice don't get me wrong but
what really kept me motivated what kept
me posting videos week after week was
the people the human impacts that some
of my videos had and I found myself
drawn to make more of those videos more
of a self-improvement and growth it's
something that I really deeply care
about and that I'm realizing a lot of
people care about and that I can use my
privilege because I've been very lucky
in my life incredibly lucky and I can
use that luck to the benefit of
thousands and hundreds of thousands of
people and to me that's just a really
worthy purpose and it's something that's
driving me right now
so that feels a little bit like I have a
purpose in life now like my purpose is
to help as many people become as amazing
as they can be and to be able to say
that is a huge blessing and I'm just
incredibly grateful so if you want to
follow along on that journey feel free
to subscribe because the way that I'm
doing that right now is YouTube but I'm
not sure what the future of it will look
like I just know that I'm really excited
for for whatever it might hold the
fourth lesson
I love weird and diverse courses and
knowledge so first semester this year I
took a weird course I took a Zen
Buddhism course it was called zen and
the art of living and it was a seminar
that had 12 people in it and then the
professor and it was pass/fail so we
didn't have to worry about grades and as
a computer science major it's super
weird for me to be able to take courses
like that like usually at least at
universities in Canada if you're a
computer science major your courses are
pretty much set out for you you don't
really have that many electives but for
me
half of my courses were electives this
year and that's going to continue into
future years and that's kind of the
nature of a liberal arts education and I
didn't really understand that or
appreciate that until this year but what
I'm starting to learn from taking these
weird courses like the Zen course but
also like the psychology of success and
failure and I took two semesters of
Swedish learning from that and also
learning from reading a book a week this
year I'm 25-ish books in I really
appreciate diverse thought I like
reading about different things and
learning about different things and
trying to pull you know elements from
psychology and computer science and you
know religion pulling things all
together trying to create some kind of
cohesive worldview to me that's what's
really exciting right now in academics
and and it's what's really keeping me
going in school and as I move forward
that lesson is just going to to inform
the courses that I decide to take so I
think I'm gonna be making an effort to
take diverse courses courses that I
wouldn't have necessarily considered
because I really do appreciate that
complexity that it brings to my world
and the fifth and final lesson is that
Harvard isn't great but it's people are
one thing that I didn't know before the
past year and one thing that I think a
lot of people don't know is it as a
well Harvard honestly isn't that great I
mean the classes very similar to most
other university classes the the food
you know very similar the dorm rooms
very similar the buildings very similar
obviously a lot of these things are nice
and they're beautiful and I still
appreciate them as huge Lee but you know
looking at universities like Rice
University for example beautiful campus
as well you know you're gonna get a
similar a similar experience there
what makes Harvard special it's the
people and I think a lot of people don't
really understand this see the saying
that you are the average of the five
people closest to you is really true I
mean it takes a community to bring a
person up if you're surrounded by
exceptional and inspirational people
then it's not that hard to become
exceptional and inspired yourself and so
at Harvard this becomes pretty easy
because everyone there is exceptional
and inspirational in some way or maybe
not everyone but I would say you know 60
to 80 percent which is much higher than
at most other universities the nice
thing about this lesson though is that
it doesn't just apply to Harvard see if
you're trying to become exceptional if
you're trying to become inspired then
you can find a community of similar
people you can find friends and maybe
even family that are people that will
bring you to that next level you can
surround yourself with them no matter
where you are no matter who you are and
I think ultimately that's a lesson that
a lot of people need to learn is that
sometimes you need to cut out negative
people and you need to make real efforts
to bring positive people into your life
because it will benefit you tremendously
and that's a huge thing that I learned
this year is that it's less so about you
know the classes the facilities whatever
it's all about the people so those are
the five things the top five things that
I learned from my freshman year and if
you're interested in hearing another
perspective on a first year at Harvard
check out my roommate Luke's YouTube
channel he's actually posted a video on
this very topic and he's starting to
post more regular content so I really do
encourage you to check him out maybe
subscribe if you like that type of
content so yeah thank you so much for
watching I really do appreciate your
support and all of this if you liked the
video maybe drop a like if you haven't
already
and you want to follow along in my
journey of personal growth and
development make sure you subscribe it
means a time to me and it really does
help me out so thank you so much again
and I will see you on Tuesday
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