Kester says he was initially intimidated by the course offerings when he was supposed to choose classes, but soon went with a policy of seeking out classes whose course descriptions did not include "any words ... longer than four syllables." His final schedule was a class studying the history of gladiators, a course about fairy tales, a science class focusing on dinosaurs, and a class in the anthropology department about aliens. "On paper, my schedule of 'GLADIATORS–FAIRY TALES–DINOSAURS–ALIENS' looked strikingly similar to a list I had written as a five-year-old entitled 'MY FaVoRiTE ThINgs!!!!!,'" Kester wrote. "It wasn't exactly the type of rigorous curriculum you'd expect from The World's Greatest University."

Part of Harvard University's campus
Elise Amendola/AP