You Earned A Harvard!

A view of a flag emblazoned with the HBS shield, Winter 2025. Image credit: Nicolas Ng (MBA'27)

On belonging at Harvard: Trusting Yyur own pace

Author's note: Originally written in April 2025 (RC year) and published in April 2026 (EC year), this piece is an unchanged excerpt from my personal journal dated April 26, 2025. A lot has happened since: classes, retreats, finals, and everything that comes with closing out two unforgettable years.

Let’s talk about cliques. Yes, those tight-knit little clusters of people who seem to move through Spangler like an elite social club, brunching together, group-chatting constantly in class, somehow managed to coordinate Halloween costumes, and stayed in the same spring break hotels in Colombia.

If you're an international student like me, watching these squads form with lightning speed can feel a little like High School Musical: Harvard edition. Watching them move through campus like a perfectly curated Instagram carousel can feel like everyone else cracked some secret code to friendship while I was still trying to figure out how to set up my HarvardKey.

Let’s rewind the tape. How did we get here?

It all started with “Yeah! Week” – You Earned A Harvard!

Before the first case, before the first cold call, before we even touched foot on campus, there was Yeah! Week. The unofficial, sun-soaked, borderline chaotic “pre-HBS trip” where a bunch of strangers bonded in Croatia and created what looked like lifelong friendships overnight.

I wasn’t at Yeah! Week, I was not even aware of Yeah! Week until like a month ago (I didn’t check those Slack channels, but it’s also not like I would have gotten a visa to Croatia that fast!). So I arrived at START Week already feeling like the party had started without me. 

Then came START Week, with its icebreakers, section reveals, and overly enthusiastic dance parties. And before I could even memorize my professors’ names, we were off to Section Retreats, Field Day, and the ever-glamorous Gatsby Party, where everyone looked like a vintage Vogue spread, and I on the other hand, didn’t read the line about the dress code in the Eventbrite email: “Dress to Impress: Channel your inner Gatsby and bring out your best 1920s fashion. Think flapper dresses, dapper suits, and all the glitz and glamour of the roaring twenties.”

It’s been too long, and as I try to recall the details of the chaos that was those early days, I remember that somewhere in that blur of name games, group selfies, and awkward club fair conversations, cliques began to crystallize in front of my eyes.

On to the mid-semester “Wait, do I belong?” moment

It hit me around October. Maybe November. Mind you, I had been going to all the events such as Friendsgivings, small group dinners, club meetings but something still felt off. Like everyone else has a default crew, a go-to group chat, a table in Spangler that always saves them a seat. And there I was,  just hovering with my food, pretending to be on a call with loved ones back home.

So why was I, someone who usually finds connection with ease, suddenly struggling to fit in? I remember journaling about it almost every night last semester, trying to make sense of it all. So believe me, I’ve done the fieldwork, I’ve practically turned the HBS social scene into an anthropological case study.

What I came to realize is that there are different cultural codes for how friendship forms and shows up. Back home, relationships often unfold slowly, built over time, through consistency, shared experiences, and quiet trust. Here, it felt like connections sparked fast and flourished publicly through group selfies, inside jokes, and weekend getaways happening before midterms. Neither approach is better or worse, just different. But navigating that difference was what was making me feel like I was always one step behind. Like I was still translating the signals while others were already fluent.

Then came winter break

A natural pause, a trip back home, and a little perspective. Coming back for the second semester, I made a quiet vow to myself: I would put myself out there. No more waiting for the perfect invitation or hoping to be swept into someone else’s plans. I started reaching out to people for coffee. I smiled back in the classroom. I said hello to people whose names I didn’t remember but I had seen them at recruiting events  and I genuinely asked my seatmates about their weekend plans.

I also got intentional about staying grounded. I made time to update my closest friends from back home about what was going on with me: the highs and lows, the funny classroom moments, the awkward conversations that happen on those long bathroom lines between classes. Just knowing they were in my corner gave me the confidence to be more open here too.

Finally, it happened…

I found my people. I became part of groups that eat lunch together, spend days in New York for Spring Break, grab drinks on random Wednesdays, have WhatsApp groups with funny names, and even found someone crazy enough to sign up for Monday morning coffee catch-ups at Faro, the cafe in Cambridge.

It turns out, those “cliques” that once felt so impenetrable? They’re often just groups of people who invested early, traveled together, shared rooms during Yeah!Week, or sat next to each other in Spangler on Day 1 and never moved. Chances are, they’re not trying to be exclusive. And even if they are, go ahead and start your own clique. After all, you got into HBS because of your amazing ability to connect with people.

Your opportunity (promises high ROI!)

As I write this, I just got back from the RC Gala (it was giving Met Gala, and this time I remembered to buy a gown). Group chats are full of section-wide selfies and inside jokes. There’s talk of summer plans and EC year course selection. You can almost hear the reflective piano music swelling in the background, like the final scene of a coming-of-age movie where everyone has grown just a little, cried just a bit, and somehow found their way. 

And in this very moment, I am feeling more settled, more seen; and to be fair, there is still a lot I am yet to figure out. So as you read this, wherever you are in that journey: you’re not alone. Because at the end of the day, belonging at HBS isn’t about cracking the clique code. It’s about being brave enough to connect. Whether you started doing that in Croatia or this winter semester, every Monday at 8 A.M., at Faro, or you just sent your first coffee chat invite to that section-mate you’ve been curious about from the very first day, it counts. It matters.

The author (MBA '26) has requested to remain anonymous.