The solution to balancing school and work maybe finding the right job. Director of StudentEmployment Martha H. Homer says her office oftenhelps students find positions in community serviceand labs that pay well, and are as interesting andresume-building as an extracurricular.
Ray A. Wynter '96 says he is testimony to thefact that jobs can be enjoyable. A psychologyconcentrator who ran track as an undergraduateWynter also worked 17 hours a week at anoff-campus loan office.
"It was pretty good for me," Wynter says. "Iwas looking for another experience off-campus. Itwas good for me to spend time with people whoweren't talking about finals and midterms."
But if it's important to you to pursue atime-intensive and unpaid extracurricular, perhapsreducing your job commitment is a good idea.
"I have the rest of my life to pay off myloans," Franklin says. "Extracurriculars are sucha big part of life at Harvard."
Got Career Plans
But many recent graduates are not quite soblithe about the burden of loan debt.
They say the prospect of paying off tens ofthousands of dollars in loans often means a stintin a high-paying field like consulting orinvestment banking or a desperate search for thefellowship of one's dreams.
Tamara V. Tai '98 says the only reason she wasable to afford pursuing a career in teaching wasTeach for America. The federally funded programlets her to put off paying back student loans fortwo years while she teaches in a bilingualclassroom in Phoenix, Ariz.
"If it wasn't for Teach for America, I mighthave had to get a better paying job aftergraduation," says Tai, who amassed close to$15,000 in loans while at Harvard. "I loveteaching and would do anything to pursue it, butthe loans are there and I need to pay them off."
Kristy L. Garcia '98 says she has spent thefive months since graduation saving up for the daywhen she tries to break into the publishing orentertainment industries while facing close to$20,000 in loans.
"It didn't really hit me until second semesterof senior year," says Garcia from her home in SanJose, Calif. "I went through my year just signingaway loans, thinking I'll pay it back at somepoint."
Garcia is now working to consolidate her loansso she can pay them back at a lower interest rate.Starting in January, Garcia will pay $40 a monthuntil she pays back $2,000 in federal Perkinsloans and from $100 to 200 a month before she isfree from $18,000 in Stafford loans.
Stories like Garcia's have hit home withundergraduates like William W. Cai '01. A physicsconcentrator who works for a physics professor ina high energy physics lab, Cai says he works fiveto 12 hours a week because he has the time.
"I don't want the extra debt," says Cai, whosees graduate school in his post-Harvard future."Work fits into my schedule now, so I'm going towork."