It was after midnight last night when I decided to take a break from my macroeconomics reading about mutual funds. Coffee mug in hand, I walked barefoot toward the large, old wooden windows, where I met the reflection of my Caribbean silhouette on the humid, frozen glass. There I stood almost in trance, shocked, unbelieving, in awe before the sight of my very first snowstorm, falling on an already iced, snow-white Prescott Street.

This morning the romanticism of snowflakes turned into frustrated efforts to remain dry on my way to Econ. Harvard Yard was a chaos of umbrellas and jumping students trying to avoid sinister puddles and brown inches of slush. I was wearing average black leather boots, thinking that this would suffice to surmount the mountains of swow and slush I encountered everywhere. But it didn’t take long before I was shivering, toes soaked, and dealing with an intrusive wind and melting snow covering all sidewalks. I had to walk to the nearest store and get myself some boots, in this case, the ugliest 100-percent rubber boots that made me look like a firefighter. Turned into a fashion disaster, but happily dry, I was able to defy weather conditions on my way to the library after class.

The studying marathon of second semester still hasn’t begun. The beginning of every semester is slow-paced, focusing primarily on reading assignments. Essays and problem sets usually arrive a couple of weeks later, after the deadline for adding and dropping courses.

This semester I am far more oriented toward my major and its requirements. After having explored various departments and fields of concentrations in the fall, I now am pretty sure I will major in history and literature with an emphasis on the United States and Latin America. This is Harvard’s oldest concentration and requires the writing of a thesis during senior year. Coming from a culture where practical disciplines were the most common path for professionals, my parents found it somewhat difficult to understand the validity of my academic choice. A doctor and an engineer, they expected me to do something more practical, such as economics. However, the purpose of a liberal arts college is not to provide a pre-professional background. Instead, it cultivates the student in all academic areas, stressing analysis and thought process more than knowledge of a particular field. The history and literature major will prove very valuable in helping me polish writing skills, understand primary sources, and acquire a more global perspective. These attributes will serve me well in the future, when I pursue a career in law, where the ability to reason and write flawlessly are most important.

This semester, the four classes I’m taking are oriented toward this path. They are a Spanish literature course about Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar, a freshman seminar on political speech-making and the language of American democracy, macroeconomics, and the required expository writing seminar for freshmen, whose topic is “the voice of authority.” I was very careful in my selection, and my care has paid off with a deep interest in each course. In my Spanish course, I’ll have the opportunity to work with PhD students. In the second, I’ll have to deliver a six-minute speech for a 200-person audience that will include professors, students, and relatives. In my expository writing course, we’ll have the privilege to speak with two foreign political prisoners whose works we will be analyzing.

What I love about college is that you begin choosing classes based on your interests rather than just fulfilling requirements. In high school, you have less variety of courses, and limitations in terms of topics and even professors. In college, there are fewer requirements for concentrations, hundreds of classes from which to choose, and a vast range of professors. At Harvard some are even Nobel laureates. A student who is self-motivated and wants to learn has infinite possibilities. I explained this to my parents and they have finally understood—college years should be the last opportunity to study everything and anything we are passionate about, before we take on greater responsibilities in life.