Matt L. Butler ’04 said his friend had the confidence and strength to beat out the competition and win the apprenticeship with Trump. “When you go into the boardroom, you have to stick to your guns, like Andy does,” Butler said. “Donald is smart. He’s not an intellectual, but he goes for the big picture.”

A FLAIR FOR FUN

Butler said Litinsky was able to use the course material from a class they took together last fall, Science B-35, “How to Build a Habitable Planet.”

When Trump told each team of nine candidates to design an original, marketable toy for Mattel, Litinsky recalled a category of creature that he had studied in a Core class.

“I really like crustaceans, I don’t know if that’s just me,” Litinsky said, pointing to a diagram of a good-versus-evil game involving playing cards and action figures.

“What you’re dealing with is this interesting lobster torso,” Litinsky said with a smile to his teammates and the TV audience.

Though the final product, which Litinsky called “Crustacean Nation,” did not meet with Donald’s approval, it did call attention to Litinsky’s ability to lead older and more experienced candidates.

Mike Renan, who was Litinsky’s teaching fellow for the class, said he was planning on holding Thursday-night study breaks in his tutor suite to watch “The Apprentice.”

He is rooting for Litinsky, despite the fact that Litinsky was a “wise-ass” and a “cocky bastard” in section last year.

Renan thought that Litinsky’s self-confidence would be his tragic flaw and ultimately lead to his dismissal. “He won’t win because he’s too cocky,” Renan said.

But even if Litinsky wins, his professor Levitsky says it’s a waste to use a Harvard education to pursue Trump-like goals.

“The last thing that I hope to produce in my students is a Trump apprentice,” Levitsky said. “But Andy is a really smart, articulate, personable kid who can go very far in whatever he chooses to do.”

—Staff writer Elena P. Sorokin can be reached at sorokin@fas.harvard.edu.