ID Cards: A Tale of Triumph

Soooooo, this whole graduate school thing is pretty great, but there was a time not too long ago when I thought I might never make it at all.

In their Ivy League wisdom, my fine friends at Harvard had a few requests for my “TO DO BEFORE LEAVING SANTA CRUZ” list: sending proof of immunizations (apparently they don’t want any polio outbreaks on campus next year…), completing some surveys, and submitting a photo for my ID card.

It sounds easy, right?  Send ‘em a picture—you even get to choose your own, you don’t have to cross your fingers for a good “school picture day” snapshot as they herd hundreds of students through Orientation Week—and they’ll have your ID card waiting for you when you arrive.

Oh, Harvard.  That’s such a lovely idea.  Why, of course I’ll send you a picture.

Except there were rules.  Like, lots of them.  It took the better part of an hour to make myself ID-card presentable, pick out awesome earrings since they’d be the only accessory showing (just keepin’ it real, people), find a white wall for a backdrop, take a few shots, figure out how to crop them by pixel count (gracious!), and then submit the picture to Harvard online.

Two days later, on my birthday, I received this:

“Dear Julia Ando,

You are receiving this e-mail because you have submitted a photo using the Harvard University ID Card Photo Submission Application. The ID Card Services Office has reviewed your photo and unfortunately it cannot be printed on your new Harvard ID card due to the following:

1.    You need a white background. You need to crop on your collarbone and just above your head.

2.    Photo is not cropped properly.

3.    Photo does not have non-textured, smooth white background.

4.    Face does not fill at least 80% of frame.

5.    Photo does not have sufficient lighting.

At this time, we ask you to re-submit another photo of yourself, using the ID Card Photo Submission Application. Please review the photo requirements carefully to ensure a successful submission. […]”

WHAT DO THESE PEOPLE WANT FROM ME?

I felt like a failure five times over, and I hadn’t even stepped into a single classroom yet!  Was this some sort of “weeding out” process?  They were going to identify the weak among us before we even arrived in Cambridge.

After a pep talk from my friend Sally, and the help of this great thing called “the Internet,” I was able to pull it together and make a second attempt.  I ended up doing a “green screen” dealio to an existing picture by following a helpful tutorial.  

For the record, I was NOT the only one to have trouble with this.  Apparently lots of America’s future leaders in education were equally stumped.  My favorite Facebook post on the subject…

“My student ID photo submission was rejected today. Apparently, they do not appreciate airbrushing in grad school.”  Followed by…

“I just went to Walgreen’s last night.  My photo is disgusting and I look like Michael Jackson’s celebrity mugshot.”

In the end, my endeavor was a success.  On the first day of class, I was presented with my ID card.  It looks like this:

No airbrushing required.