(violin music)
♪ I went to the crossroads ♪
♪ Fell down on my knees ♪
♪ I went to the crossroads ♪
Hi, my name is Gabe Gladstein.
I'm a second semester senior at Harvard,
and a Master's student
at the New England Conservatory of Music,
studying improvisation.
I just got back from a ruck march that we did for ROTC.
I'll commission next year in the army
as a second lieutenant.
In addition, I do some political speech writing,
I do some volunteering,
I teach in Boston Public High School's health education,
and I'm excited to show you my day.
(upbeat string music)
I just got back from a ruck.
A ruck is basically this backpack.
It's about, this one's about 40 pounds with (mumbles).
We did four miles at about a 15 minute pace,
and so now I just gotta change, shower,
and bandage this blister, and we'll get going.
So a typical day in my life, I'll get up around 5:00 am,
in order to prepare for ROTC.
After that, maybe I'll run over to NEC
because it's pretty close by to practice.
And spend a couple hours there, have a lesson,
then I'll head over to Harvard, probably have a class,
a class or two.
Head home, do some work, work on the thesis,
or work on a track or something.
That's basically that.
♪ Find the start you knew ♪
♪ Just how to do ♪
♪ I need your loving like something ♪
♪ Now every morning through ♪
♪ Everything I do ♪
♪ I need your loving like something now. ♪
♪ So many times I got the role I'm playing ♪
So we're at the New England Conservatory of Music.
It's the oldest music conservatory in the United States.
So it's just a really amazing place.
- So what kind of music are you studying here?
- So I am in what's called
the contemporary improvisation program.
We actually just had a shirt that just said,
CI, what is this?
Basically, it's everything that isn't
just specifically classical music or jazz music.
I personally do a lot of pop,
kind of singing and songwriting.
- Well I saw you have this, like, dope electric violin?
- Yeah, yeah.
- So how'd you get started with that?
- I discovered it because I started as classical violinist.
Even saying that is really a stretch,
'cause I was so bad at it.
I found this jazz violinist, a totally amazing guy
called Jean Luc Ponty,
who is, you know, the electric violinist.
I'm, being an eight year old kid or whatever,
it wasn't like, oh, I need to develop the skill
to, you know, play that way, or whatever,
it was like, I need to be an electric violinist.
(upbeat electric violin music)
- And it felt like it would bring, like,
a different sort of sound to pop music.
- Yeah, yeah.
So my goal is to incorporate it in a way
that people really haven't heard before.
- So, regarding the NEC program you're in,
so that Master's program, what are you hoping to get out it?
- So it's a five year Master's with Harvard.
I decided that I wasn't going to compromise
with music and academics.
I wanted to be able to divide my time,
and my brain or whatever, in that way.
And I just didn't want to lose my connection to music.
I had a feeling I wanted to pursue a music career,
and I felt like if I was going full time
to an academic school,
just little by little I would lose touch.
Let me see, just let me get the vocal.
♪ And I need somebody ♪
♪ And you told me that somebody was you ♪
So it'll be, ah,
(piano music)
♪ And I need somebody ♪
♪ And you told me that somebody was you ♪
♪ Not just anybody ♪
- So where are we right now?
- So, we're inside the
Phillips Brooks House Association, PBHA,
it's basically the center of public service at Harvard.
I've been involved for years with a group
called Peer Health Exchange, PHE,
and they're a national organization that has a chapter here,
that exists under the PBHA umbrella.
- So tell me a little bit more about Peer Health Exchange,
and the work you guys do.
- So, Peer Health Exchange's mission
is to essentially just provide students,
high school students, and particularly,
we focus our efforts in low income high schools.
So we're privileged enough to, you know,
we gather college students from all these different schools,
including Harvard and Tufts,
and they get a curriculum, they go into a public high school
and then can you believe this,
you're sending a college student into a public high school
and teaching a course, during the school day.
- Wow. - I mean, just the ability
to do that, it's incredible.
(upbeat music)
- So tell me a little bit about your process
transferring to Harvard.
- Yeah, so basically I applied to Harvard
the first time around out of high school.
I didn't get in, and I was honestly sort of crushed by it.
I think I had like let me ego get a little out of hand.
I think over-confidence
really sort of doomed my application.
And I just, you know,
I didn't put the effort in that I should have.
And so, I didn't get in, and I went to Tufts,
and I actually I loved my classes there,
I had some great professors,
who I really connected well with
and honestly the fact was,
a lot of the readings that we were doing
in the Tufts political science department
were, like, written by professors here.
And I just couldn't get around the fact
that I wanted to be working with, like, the source.
I wanted to be studying here,
I wanted to be surrounded by the students here,
and remarkably it happened.
Coming here with the perspective of, like,
I wasn't here last year,
and I wasn't, like, a Harvard kid, you know,
like, the guy who gets into Harvard,
and everybody's like, amazed or whatever,
like I wasn't that guy.
And I never felt when I got here that, like,
oh this is my school, or you know, that this is the place.
I felt like this is an opportunity.
And I will be making a serious mistake if I waste it.
- So when did you start doing ROTC at Harvard?
- I really like became involved in the program
at the beginning of my Junior year,
which is the latest, actually, that you can join.
You know, I read this article about these Harvard cadets
doing this stuff, and I just felt,
I don't know, I kinda felt called by it.
You know, I'd love to tell you, like,
yeah, it's a totally selfless thing,
I'm here to serve my country, and the fact is,
I'm proud to be doing something for my country in that way,
but it's, it really is for me,
because I felt that there was a hole.
I was missing some purpose.
It's so different from anything else I do.
It's a totally different world,
and I really discovered that when I went to Fort Knox.
It's a 30-day basic training course for future officers.
And so, I mean it kind of beat the crap out of me, really.
And you're all the same,
and we were all like garbage, basically, which is good.
That's how they do it.
The program breaks you down in order to build you up
into a soldier and a leader.
(soothing music)
- So you're studying government at Harvard.
Tell me a little bit about what the department is like.
- Yeah, so, Harvard government faculty
are really unbelievable.
A lot of these people have sort of invented their fields.
I came to Harvard in large part
because of the government department,
so my goal was to get as much face time with professors,
and like, small classroom settings as I possibly could,
and that's been totally possible.
I've taken, I think I've taken like
four small-style seminar classes
tht require big research papers at the end.
In no other environment here
are you able to get that kind of concentrated time
with these, like, heroes,
and you know, they read your research paper,
and they tell you what they think of your research.
Like, getting that type of feedback
is almost impossible anywhere else,
just like, with people at this level.
So it's an amazing experience.
(upbeat music)
Hey, if you want to learn more about Top Colleges,
make sure to subscribe.
(beep), I (beep) that up.
(laughing)
- [Man] That's a wrap, that's the last one (mumbles)
(laughing)