Pauline Mutumwinka: “Down the Rabbit Hole”

Student speech at Harvard College Class Day 2012

Pauline Mutumwinka

In her Harvard oration, one of four student speeches given as part of the Class Day ceremony, Pauline Mutumwinka ’12 compared her Harvard experience to Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass: "For starters, I think you'll agree that freshman year felt a bit like falling down a rabbit hole."

Mutumwinka is particularly far from home—she is from Rwanda—and she spoke of struggling to figure out where she fit in: was she "Black/African American" or "Other" on the U.S. census? Should she pretend to care about the Red Sox just to make nice?

She said she emerged from Harvard having learned that it "is not the Wonderland where things always work like magic," but "it is the Wonderland where we tirelessly questoin our beliefs and assumptions—a place where we try to make sense of a world that often seems quite absurd, knowing that hard work, not magic, will solve this world's problems."

Sub topics

You might also like

Harvard Plans Contingencies for International Students

The Kennedy School and School of Public Health are developing online options.

Agree to Disagree

The Undergraduate asks if intellectualism is really on life support.

Most popular

House Committee Subpoenas Harvard Over Tuition Costs

The University must turn over all requested materials related to tuition and financial aid by mid-July. 

Global Reach

A new center in Shanghai reflects Harvard’s growing engagement with the People’s Republic.

The New Gender Gaps

What to do as men and boys fall behind

Explore More From Current Issue

Will the U.S. Dollar Always Be So Powerful?

The preeminence of U.S. currency at risk

Filmmaker John Armstrong’s Adventure Documentaries

Filmmaker John Armstrong’s “outdoor adventures” find the human spirit.