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Key points
- Zero-gen students struggle to belong to Ivy League institutions.
- Zero-gen students face a lack of support by their families.
- Zero-gen students often experience negative stereotypes from the immigration system.
Coauthored with Murad Subih
Murad Subih moved from the bottom of the intellectual pyramid to its top. He grew up in a village in Yemen with no electricity. He worked on his family farm and became an expert in nourishing plants and rearing animals. Attending Harvard was not in his imagination. None of his family knew about Harvard. When he was admitted to Harvard, neither he nor his family nor the immigration office of the United States believed it.
When Murad was in Yemen, he worked in all sorts of jobs, including those (e.g., restaurants and construction) that did not match his educational attainment. After finishing his master’s degree, he applied to work in different labs. Given the volume of applications he submitted, Murad lost track of the places to which he applied.
One day, he received an email from Harvard and thought it was spam. He waited for days without replying. Then, after verifying that the email came from a legitimate Harvard laboratory, he scheduled and successfully passed three interviews. As a result of the conflict in Yemen, airports and embassies closed down, and it took Murad more than a year to obtain a U.S. visa.
When Murad was preparing to attend Harvard, his family could not believe it. They were in denial. His parents, though proud of the scholar he was becoming, could not understand the magnitude of the achievement.
“I will not believe it until you send a picture of you at Harvard,” his father told him. “We do not even know where Harvard is.”
Given the denial from his family, they did not understand the implications of his success. As a result, they could not become a source of support during his journey at Harvard.
At the Boston Logan International Airport, the immigration officers investigated him for six hours and almost sent him back to Yemen. “Your story does not make sense,” the officers told him. “Your resume is not typical of Harvard admitted students.”
The officers wondered how a student who had freshly arrived from war-torn Yemen would attend Harvard. His arrival to study at Harvard sounded like a scam to them. Murad tried to explain that he had earned his spot at Harvard, and after an arduous interrogation, they allowed him to exit the airport.
Zero-Gen at Harvard
Murad received a scholarship from Hadhramout Foundation, a nonprofit organization that funds students from Yemen to pursue education abroad. However, the war in Yemen caused the currency to plummet, and his family suffered greatly. Therefore, Murad worked in a part-time job to support his family.
In the morning, he attended Harvard Medical School in the white lab coat, analyzing patients’ data and studying topics at the forefront of medical science. In the evening, he worked at a local Yemeni restaurant where he wore the traditional custom of Yemen, serving delicious Yemeni food to customers.
In the morning, he drew smiles on his patients' faces and provided the best care. In the evening, he served customers with a smile and a style. In the morning, he applied meticulous skills and fastidiously paid attention to details. In the evening, he applied his cultural skills and danced to Yemeni music in the restaurant.
Murad hopes to transform the medical field in Yemen. He plans to acquire the best skills and gain connections at Harvard that will position him as the upcoming medical leader. Especially with the ongoing Civil War and the Covid-19 pandemic, Murad is devastated by how patients are treated and how medical services are used in Yemen. He believes that receiving high-quality medical care is a basic human right.
Now that Murad has spent almost two years learning and thriving at Harvard, he is determined to help prospective students from Yemen to attend this fine institution. “My experience at Harvard has been transformative,” he said. “I learned how to navigate one of the most challenging learning environments in the world.” He believes that undergoing transformative learning is necessary for shaping his character.
Murad is not only the first person in his family to attend college, but he is the first person in his country to pursue a competitive academic opportunity at Harvard Medical School. Therefore, he is not just a first-generation student but also a zero-generation student. He is perhaps one of the few students who put on a white coat in the morning at Harvard laboratories and then put on Yemeni clothes in the evening at a Yemeni restaurant.
When asked what keeps him up and running, Murad said that “I love to draw smiles on people whether in the lab or the restaurant.” Indeed, anyone who meets Murad will appreciate his positively contagious smile. Despite his challenging conditions, a smile never leaves his face.
Murad is an Arabic name that means “that which is wanted.” Murad wants to transform the health field in Yemen, taking it from the bottom of the pyramid to its top, just as how he climbed the ladder of education from the bottom to the top–from Yemen to Harvard.
Murad Subih is a Research Fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital at Harvard Medical School.
