The 2022 Senior Perspectives is the 17th in a series of annual collections. Senior captains and representatives of teams at Harvard have been invited to contribute viewpoints based on personal experience from both their senior seasons and full varsity careers at Harvard.

Annika Bassey
Hometown: Denver, Colo.
Concentration: Neuroscience
House Affiliation: Eliot

My Harvard experience can be described in one word: unexpected. My tennis career was plagued by injuries; I ended up in a completely different industry than intended; I discovered new passions for things I'd never considered; and in the past three years, I have navigated being a college student during a global pandemic. Nothing went as planned, yet as I look back on my Harvard experience I would not have wanted it any other way.

 
As a first-year student, I thought I had everything figured out. I was pre-med, studying physics, prepared to compete in tennis and had the next four years of my life planned out down to every class, extracurricular and summer experience. My plans, however, were quickly derailed when I had my first of many injuries that consistently hindered the rest of my tennis career. Although I was still able to occasionally compete in doubles, I did not get to play at the level I expected and had to assume a supporting role on the team. Though this was not what I envisioned and was often difficult and disappointing, the unexpected outcome taught me some of the most valuable lessons of what it truly means to be a good teammate and support, push and inspire those around me regardless of my title or status on the team.
 
Despite tennis not going as planned, school and extracurriculars began to flourish as I went into sophomore year. I became a PAF, conducted research on the neuroscience of mindfulness, tutored through the ARC and became a CA for the Math Department. I immersed myself into the community and finally started to find my place at the college. But just as I was getting my bearings, the entire world was hit with the unexpected: a global pandemic.
 
When the pandemic started and during moments throughout, there were lots of times of isolation, loneliness and pain. I went from being immersed in the community and constantly surrounded by friends to being alone in my home. I went from preparing for our Ivy season to losing two years of tennis competition. And I went from being engaged and stimulated in and out of the classroom to laying in bed watching lecture recordings and praying I didn't get put into a Zoom breakout room. Nevertheless, with all the missed opportunities, new opportunities began to unfold.
 
With my extra time, I was able to finally organize and form the Harvard Athletics Black Varsity Association with the help of some other athletes and my coach Traci Green. We were able to organize and create the long-overdue community for Black student-athletes. The pandemic along with the introduction of our new athletic director, Erin McDermott, provided the perfect opportunity for the organization to form, grow and flourish. Over the past two years leading the organization, we have been able to organize many community building events, including book club discussions on prominent social justice issues, an alumni mentorship program and career panel, financial literacy workshops with Morgan Stanley, discussions with star-studded athletes on activism and social justice and two end-of-the-year banquets to celebrate all of the achievements of our athletes. HABVA has been able to provide a community for Black
student-athletes to feel welcome, supported and heard through their time at Harvard, and the organization is one of my proudest achievements from my time.

In addition to being able to form HABVA, the pandemic also pushed me to take CS50, a class I had never even considered. I had always been set on pre-med, and I knew nothing about computer science. However, due to my newfound pandemic time, my brother encouraged me to take the introduction to computer science course. And to my surprise, the decision to take the class completely changed my life. It made me fall in love with coding and computer science and pushed me to pursue my newfound interest in tech. From there, I then left pre-med and decided to change my career path and become a full-time software engineer — something that first-year me would have never even dreamed of.
 
Now as a senior, I look back on my Harvard experience and am thankful for all the unexpected. Despite my tennis career not going as planned, I found a family in Harvard women's tennis that I will remember more than what matches I played or the losses and disappointments endured. And although I lost a year and half of the traditional college experience, I created a much needed community for Black student-athletes at Harvard and will leave Harvard Athletics better than when I came. Even though my college career was chaotic and unexpected, everything went wrong in the right way.