Finding Happiness in a Harvard Classroom

By Tovia Smith

Published March 22, 2006 at 2:37 PM EST

Tal Ben-Shahar teaches a class on what he calls "how to get happy." The best advice? Simplify, he says.

At Harvard University this semester, students are flocking to a new class that might give them some insight into the secret to happiness. Psychology 1504, or "Positive Psychology," has become the most popular course on campus.

Twice a week, some 900 students attend Tal Ben-Shahar's class on what he calls "how to get happy." He achieved personal happiness by taking himself off the tenure track -- because not having to publish makes him happy. His class offers research from the relatively new field of positive psychology, which focuses on what makes people happy, rather than just their pathologies.

Tovia Smith

Tovia Smith is an award-winning NPR National Correspondent based in Boston, who's spent more than three decades covering news around New England and beyond.

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