Daniel Z. Levine '03

When Daniel Z. Levine '03 started his summer internship in Washington, D.C. he was still waiting to hear whether Harvard would admit him to the Class of 2002.

Then in July, Levine got a letter offering him a deferred admission: he could come to Harvard if he was willing to take a year off first.

"I took a week off to think about it--talking with friends, my parents," Levine says. "And after a week I decided it felt right. I wanted to go to Harvard, but also a year off is not a big deal."

After some additional time to think it over, Levine says he began to think of the year off as an opportunity.

"'Wow a whole year,'" he says he thought. "I could do all these things I wanted to: take a cooking class, travel, practice with a break dancing crew."

But Enews, the e-commerce company for which Levine was interning, had other ideas. When staff there learned about his situation, they offered him a full-time job.

Levine spent most of the year working for the company, where he created content for its magazine sales website.