For several students, special concentrations promote academic exploration beyond what's currently offered at Harvard.

While Harvard College offers more than 3,700 courses in 50 undergraduate fields of study, special concentrations allow students to draw from multiple disciplines and design their own curriculum. Hear from my friend Kai, a special concentrator, about their experience!

Mollie: “Thanks for doing this, Kai! Can you briefly introduce yourself?”

Kai: “My name is Kai, I’m from Australia and Japan, and I’m doing a special concentration in Innovation and Social Impact with a focus area in Global Health Inequality. I am very interested in how the community can fill in the gaps of public health infrastructure.”

Mollie: What is a special concentration, and how is it unique from other concentrations offered at Harvard?

Kai: “Special concentration allows students to develop their own liberal arts curriculum to study fields that are not currently existing as departments at Harvard. [Students can] combine courses from a lot of different fields into a unique concentration. It gives you a lot of flexibility and support to study topics that you are truly passionate about.”

Mollie: What led you to discover special concentration?

Kai: “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to study when I first came in [to college]. I tried a lot of classes, from filmmaking to public health, and I even took a class held at carceral facilities. At first, I gravitated towards Social Studies because it’s also quite an interdisciplinary concentration. However, while Social Studies requires a written senior thesis, I wanted to apply my learnings in a hands-on project. The special concentration let me do that, and it allowed me to select courses that I was more interested in.”

Mollie: What topic did you research as part of your capstone project?

Kai: "My capstone project works with local governments in Japan to help design a community initiative for elderly care. With an aging society, Japan is facing an elderly care crisis. At the same time, families are becoming more fragmented as younger members move to the city for work. Especially in rural areas, many elderly individuals live by themselves and are quite lonely. Long term care insurance offers medical care, but not accompaniment and daily life care."

Mollie: How does your initiative engage with this question, and how did the special concentration help you bring this project to life?

Kai: "We are designing a platform to matchmake between members of the community -- university students, stay at home parents, or retirees -- with elderly people in their neighborhood for different activities. We now have a partnership with the mayor of the city! Special concentrations gave me the opportunity to pursue this as part of coursework."

Mollie: How do you apply to be a special concentrator?

Kai: "Application processes for special concentration take place in either Sophomore or Junior year. You share your goals and vision for the curriculum, explain why it can’t be studied currently, and demonstrate that it’s still liberal arts. You also find your own faculty advisor, who helps you design the curriculum and project."

Mollie: For anyone reading this blog, who would a special concentration be a good fit for?

Kai: "People who have a good idea of what they want to study that might not be traditional would benefit from doing a special concentration! There’s still a lot of support – I got funding for my fieldwork – but because you design your own curriculum, there’s some level of independence there."

Mollie: If you had to pick your favorite thing about being a special concentrator, what would it be?

Kai: "While most departments require courses to be taken on campus, I counted courses from Kenya, India, South Africa, and Argentina into my requirements. Even when I was in Cambridge, I took classes at the Kennedy School, Medical School, and MIT."

Mollie: Outside of academics, what else are you involved in on campus?

Kai: "This semester, I am a part of a musical called The Crane Wife's Return of a Favor. Recently, I’ve enjoyed biking along the Charles River and karaoke-ing with my friends."

A big thanks to Kai for sharing their experience!