A class on 19th century verse was similarly inspiring for Jen.

“[The professor] read Dover Beach to the class,” she recalls, “and I was woken up in a way that was new to me. Literature became so much more alive and exciting.”

It was then that she first realized law and medicine might not be the right careers for her.

As Jen relates, “after looking at my paper on ‘Prose Rhythms and Henry James’, Professor Fitzgerald nodded and nodded and nodded and nodded and finally asked, ‘why are you a pre-med?’ I told him I didn’t know.”

So Jen opted for a degree in English.

“Now, no one talks about medical school anymore,” she quips. “That’s probably a good thing, especially for my potential patients.”

Despite those few inspirational classes, Jen says she found that Harvard’s academic environment was often “less than nurturing.”

“It was a great place for people who knew how to go to school, to ask professors questions,” she says. “I never wanted to bother my professors.”

Jen attributes her reticence during class to Chinese-American parents who raised her “not to make any trouble.”

But Jen was shy only in the classroom. When it came to extracurricular activities, she “never did anything halfway,” says friend and fellow Kirkland resident Barbara L. Pearce ’76.

Despite her small stature, Jen became a member of Radcliffe’s varsity crew team.

Former Harvard crew coach Peter Raymond, who trained Jen for a semester, says he underestimated her when the two first met.

“I assumed, naturally, that she was a coxswain, and made some comment in which my assumption was embedded,” Raymond says. “Gish responded emphatically, but with great good humor, ‘I am NOT a coxswain!’”

Raymond says that “the ferocity of this young woman was demonstrated with her oar; in all other respects she was a beacon of humor, balance and goodwill whose smile and laughter brightened everyone in the boathouse.”

Pearce says Jen was also popular at parties.