Taking the advice of her sophomore adviser, Haley Curtin '18 took two semesters off, spending time with a West Virginia service community in rural Appalachia. Twenty miles outside cellphone service, Curtin worked with people some of whose homes lacked running water or floors. “It’s a pretty stark contrast, growing up in a Boston suburb and being at Harvard, to seeing what rural poverty looks like. It was a culture shock, but I really fell in love with it.”⠀ ⠀ Helping to create stable homes for those in need brought clarity to the direction of her education. When Curtin returned to Harvard, she changed her concentration from environmental science and public policy to religion with a focus on Christianity and Islam.⠀ ⠀ The daughter of a carpenter, she has spent most of her time outside the classroom working construction to help pay for college. Next year, she'll work in a high school on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota through an AmeriCorps service program. “My impact on rural ...