Harry Parker, Harvard’s legendary crew coach, passed away in June after 51 seasons spent coaching and mentoring Harvard rowers. As I’ve written about before, my brother rowed for Harry at Harvard. And in spite of the fact that he lives and works in the Czech Republic, my brother returned to Cambridge yesterday and joined over 100 former Harvard rowers (representing five decades of teams) on the Charles River for the Harry Parker Memorial Row. Because my mother reads this blog, Mom, that’s Scott pulling an oar and wearing the white hat at 10:24.
Harry’s passing and the outpouring of reverence and gratitude from the rowers he coached made me think about two things.
(1) If you can live the kind of life where, when you finally pass, people from all over the world travel to honor your memory and how you impacted them, you’ll have done something right. It won't matter at all whether or not you attended a prestigious college.
(2) No matter where you go to college, what you study, or how you decide to spend your time while you’re there, make one of your most important missions to find a mentor and to earn the right to have this person take an interest in your development. It might be a coach. It might be a professor. It might be an academic advisor or a department head. My college mentor recently retired, and there probably would not be a Collegewise had I not worked for her.
Potential mentors can be found at any college, not just at prestigious schools. Are you willing to seek them out and work hard enough to earn their time and attention? If you are, you’re more likely to benefit from a mentor’s interest, and to look back on your time in college as being well spent.