Yale Happiness Scientist Laurie Santos Visits Hopkins

During her speech, Santos shared her biggest piece of advice to optimize productivity: “If we want to think better and perform better, we need to focus on our happiness and our positive emotion first.” She explained that students often believe that if they’re more productive — whether it be in school, athletics, or other activities — “then they’ll feel happy after that. What we don’t think is the arrow of the cause goes the other way.” If students actually prioritized their happiness first, they’d “perform better and more likely succeed.” Her other tips included being more social and “talking face-to-face,” focusing on your physical health, savoring the moment, and practicing compassion toward yourself and others.

Director of Counseling and School’s Psychologist Dr. Susan Watson emphasized the significance of Santos’ visit to campus. She said that though Santos’ message of prioritizing happiness can be “hard to hear for the overachieving students [at Hopkins]... it’s an important seed to plant so that [students] don’t burn out in their careers.” From her experience at Hopkins, she observed that students often feel “caught up in the future instead of the present.” Ultimately, however, striving for success is “going to be challenging at every stage,” so Watson felt that students should “listen to Santos and… practice compassion both toward themselves and others.”

Students in the Peer Support Program commented upon the importance of Santos’ advice, as well. Ava Morello ’27 noted that though an “integral part of our well-being,” mental health is often “something that gets overlooked.” She continued, “students need[ed] to hear from Santos that success comes from happiness, not just the other way around.” Keelan Lee ’27 found, Santos’ insights valuable, as well, partly due to Santos’ professional perspective: “it was really good for someone like [Santos] — a college professor at Yale — to come in and affirm that while academic excellence may give you partial happiness, it doesn’t have to define all of your self-worth.”

Lee added that another reason Santos’s visit was important was Hopkins’s intense academic culture: “The environment that we create in our school — how competitive people get with grades and such, and how toxic that can be — makes it really difficult to prioritize wellbeing.” General students echoed this sentiment, reporting high levels of academic stress and expectations. Aaj Desai ’29 commented that “Hopkins holds really high standards for us, [as] do our parents [and] our peers. Because of this pressure, feeling happy doesn’t tend to be the biggest priority for a lot of students.” Another student, Angelina Zhai ’31, said that “a lot of the time, even though you want to be happy, getting a bad grade and having a parent remind you of that just overtakes the happiness.” 

Students shared their favorite pieces of advice from Santos. Desai’s was to “not only prioritize yourself, but also [prioritize] the things that make you happy.” Morello said she “loved [Santos’] emphasis on being present in the moment… I feel like it’s so important to be face-to-face with and surround yourself with people that you love and care about.” Clarissa Castilho ’29 agreed, saying that “savoring the moment” was important: “Don’t just like, be on your phone and forget about it — take the time to enjoy it.”

Students also detailed the ways they’ve tried to incorporate Santos’ advice into their lives. According to Lee, she began to “set a time limit on [her] phone for an hour.” She also said that Santos bringing into question ‘why do you really want to go on your phone?’ was “definitely super helpful” for her. Castilho reported working on not downplaying her successes and “being so hard on [herself].” She concluded that “it’s been successful — at least [her] grades have been going up.” Desai personally found that “focusing on others” and not just himself has been useful, finding that he “hasn’t been stressed about grades as much.”

Watson hoped that Santos’ insights could help students “remember the drive behind their ambition: their love of learning.” She said that students cannot pursue it, however, if they neglect “basic necessities” like rest and well-being.  Morello also stressed that prioritizing mental health is “so important” for all areas of life: “Your mind is your greatest tool… you can’t function properly anywhere without it.”