Every year the magazine hires two Harvard College students as editorial fellows, for which their main responsibility is to write a regular column called The Undergraduate. It's a tricky piece of writing—a combination of personal reflection and broader analysis. During the 2019-2020 school year, one of our editorial fellows was then-senior Drew Pendergrass, a science major and writer who deftly straddled the scientific and literary worlds. He wrote three Undergraduate columns for us: one on the current worrying trend of denial of scholarship and the fragility of science; another on his forced reintegration into the natural rhythms of his rural Alabama home after the pandemic closed Harvard's campus; and this one, on the beautiful, difficult, chaotic struggle to learn.
From the Judges
Exquisitely written. Powerful. Very, very well done.
