Be My Harvard

Here’s the thing, if you need 13,300 words to sell me something (I counted), it’s begging. I smell desperation. EVEN IF, it’s something I think sounds really cool. The scary thing is, despise it as I may, the long copy ad still works and won’t die. If I had $1,500 to burn, sure I’d fork it over right now to become a career change consultant, but that’s because I’m incurably curious. But even though all the trigger points are there (Do I come up with a different business idea every day? I do! That’s me!!) The whole approach just pushed me too far over the cliff of cheese.

Harvard doesn’t advertise. Okay maybe they advertise. But really, can you imagine Harvard advertising? COME STUDY AT HARVARD AND YOU’LL GET THESE GREAT BONUS GIFTS!

Don’t sell me what I want, be what I want and I’ll be drawn like a moth to the flame. So how do you become Harvard?

Bonus topic: How did Harvard get to be such a BFD anyway?

I’m so glad you asked!

In 1639, John Harvard forked over £779 — half his estate plus his library of four hundred books. Ta da. World class university, right? Nope. The Man who Made Harvard Harvard was Charles William Eliot, president of Harvard from 1869-1909. He goes on to reform all sorts of stuff about Harvard that then every other institution of higher learning copied. It’s fascinating stuff and I got it all here.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!!

Eliot, the man who would make Harvard into what it stands for today, wanted a chemistry professorship and was so bummed out that he didn’t get it, that he quit and spent a couple of years traveling Europe on borrowed money.

Good thing, too, because in studying the educational systems of Old World Europe he found the secrets that would lead him to write passionately about needed changes to the American college system in the Atlantic, which would lead him to being elected president of Harvard at 35, the youngest president in the institution’s history.

Moral of the story (revised): If you become something amazing, you create demand.

Bonus Moral: Not getting the big promotion might be the best thing.

Bonus Bonus Moral: Stop writing long copy ads!! Unless you’re Naomi in which case they’re fun to read and authentic.