Barack Obama Felt 'Pathetic' and 'Useless' Helping Daughter Malia Move to College The former president helped his daughter move into her dorm at Harvard last year and admitted to David Letterman on his new Netflix show that he wasn't much of a help setting up. I was basically useless. Everyone had seen me crying and misting up for basically the previous three weeks... ...so Malia, who’s very thoughtful, she goes, ‘Dad, you know, I’ve got this lamp in this box, could you put the desk lamp together?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ It should have taken five minutes or three minutes and it had one of those little tools. It only had like four parts and I’m just sitting there, toiling at this thing for half an hour and meanwhile... ...Michelle has finished scrubbing and she’s organizing closets and I was just pretty pathetic. Malia started taking classes at Harvard last August, which according to Obama, was like "open-heart surgery."