Spotlighted Student: Benjamin Hart ’16

Late in his college application process, Benjamin Hart ’16 was recommended to visit Haverford College by Roger Kafker '84 (active Haverford College Board member). Taking Roger’s suggestion to heart, Ben visited the campus, took a tour, and was promptly enamored with the Honor Code and the trust the college gives its student body. This was a refreshing and welcome change from the Holliston, Massachusetts high school from which he came.

Haverford’s D3 status had an appeal, and he enjoyed playing soccer in high school, so being able to play on the college’s team during his freshman year was a perk. Currently, his passion lies with Ultimate Frisbee where he serves as one of two co-captains that coach and manage the team. The team has done extremely well in recent years, placing 2nd at conferences and finishing 3rd at their regional tournament.

Having strong quantitative skills combined with an interest in human behavior, Ben gravitated toward behavioral economics. Taking Professor David Owens’ Junior Seminar course, Psychological Biases and Economic Decisions, solidified his decision to major in Economics with a Concentration in Mathematical-Economics. In Professor Owens’ course he was particularly interested in learning about rational and irrational decision-making behavior.

In addition, the problem solving component of the Introduction to Computer Science class with Professor Sorelle Friedler was distinctly appealing, where he chiefly worked on implementing code to complete demanding labs. Another highlight was Professor Alice Lesnick’s Critical Issues in Education, a course that explores charter and vocational educational systems, the tracking system, as well social justice issues and standardized testing concerns.

Ben spent the fall semester of his junior year in Denmark at DIS Copenhagen where he learned about the globalization of economics, the European Union, immigration in Denmark and the functionality of a socialist society. He took advantage of vast travel opportunities and developed his communication skills and self-awareness through his immersion in Danish culture.

Ben has enhanced his education by gaining work experience through summer internships. The summer after his freshman year he returned to his high school job, cold-calling for the sales department of Tom-E-Tee’s, a Massachusetts based company.

After his sophomore year, Ben spent the summer working for a Cambridge, Massachusetts based start-up, LPS Manager. He developed and implemented a python program to transfer contents of log files and directories to a designated data center.

This past summer Ben worked in Wayne, PA at B Lab, a non-profit organization whose mission is to certify corporations in their “overall social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability”. Serving as a standards analyst intern, he helped in the certification process by reviewing the documents and applications submitted by outside corporations.

For his thesis, Ben is exploring the effect of financial aid policies on the difference in post-graduate income earnings across different socioeconomic backgrounds for undergraduate students in the United States. Essentially, he is looking at a large database of individual institutions and asking how financial aid impacts the gap between earnings of students that come from a family with a lower income and earnings of students that come from a family with a higher income. His goal from the project is not to say that earnings is the end result of an education but, rather, to look at how financial aid policies in higher education affect income inequality and further explore the notion of education as a "great equalizer".

Once he graduates Ben is interested in securing a job on the east coast; Boston, New York and Philadelphia are appealing. He would like to work for a company that does ‘good’ in the world and that will allow him to work with a team of colleagues using his analytic and quantitative skills.

Ben co-founded Haverford’s Business Initiatives Group, an organization for entrepreneurial and business-minded students. He also serves on the Study Abroad Advisory Board.