"Everything means less than zero." Elvis Costello
Freshman Week is like a bad simile--self-conscious, strained, shallow, you want to say everything, but end up conveying only your desperation. You enter Harvard Yard and think, "Well, this is the beginning of a new chapter in my life," and then try to write it without understanding the setting, the characters or the tone. But if that's too abstract, let's put it another way--you're like a large, black dog in a sea of blind porpoises. No, a jellybean nestled in the center of a goose-liver pate.
The point is, don't be so self-conscious, don't be so quick to judge every babbling idiot or drunken scumbag you encounter, don't search for weighty metaphors or all-encompassing aphorisms to capture that "My word, everything's fucked up" feeling, don't try to create a niche for yourself in one week, and don't overrate the importance of those first few days.
The first thing you'll realize when you arrive at Harvard Yard is that nobody will ask you what college you're going to, and you won't get terribly far dropping the name. Put away your Harvard tee-shirt, because it ain't chic here, it's overkill.
Moving in will be a mob scene. If such situations upset you, bring plenty of Valium. Dope is usually effective, but may encourage your paranoia.
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6:58. You stand, luggage in hand, at the threshold of your college career, at the steps of your freshman dorm. Always prepared, you found out early about those legendary assholes who show up early and grab the single. Beat them at their own game, you say.
6:59. A hush falls over the crowd--your janitor, jingling a keyring in his annual show of authority, emerges from the leafy green of Harvard yard and mounts the steps. You scan the competition, looking for an angle that will bring you through the door before your still-anonymous cohabitants.
7:00. The race is on. You get your second wind by the third flight--the others are falling behind. You burst through the appointed door, an easy first. Relax, you tell yourself, you roommates probably won't even show til tomorrow. Smooth sailing.
7:02. You stroll towards the only single, throwing your nylon duffle to reserve the bed just in case. Clothes in the closet...what's this? A note on the desk. "Hi! Welcome to Harvard. I'm working dorm crew, be back at five. Hope you don't mind that I took the single. See ya, Jan."
7:05. Despair. An inauspicious start, you say. Sit on your bed and wait. Your proctor will come by and console you. He will even know your name and recognize your face. They have to study the freshman face book.
****
There will be receptions for parents in the Harvard Union, which they will undoubtedly want to attend. Parents go for that kind of thing; they love walking around Harvard Yard and babbling over lukewarm coffee about how classy it all is--down to the elite roaches in your bathroom sink. They really mean it when they say it's your school; they think you own it. "Your library is so magnificent!" they squeal. Or, "It says in the paper that a Harvard professor just testified at a Congressional hearing. Aren't you proud?" To which one replies "shift no--he forgot everything I told him to say."
The freshman seminar booklet you received over the summer can be a shocker. You may have imagined narrow fields of expertise at Harvard, but the obscure snippets of academia which make up freshman seminar courses are probably your first encounter with just how erudite and moldy some professors can be.
It's worth your time to muddle through, however, and if you don't find something you like the first time, try again, and this time show a little spirit. Work up some enthusiasm. Freshman seminars, mostly taught by professors, are among the best opportunities you will have here. The courses are small, the professors often teach what they are currently working on or are most interested in, and the classes are specifically for freshmen--not condescendingly, but without presumption.
Getting into freshman seminars is a game of wits and perseverance. The applications are a gamble--if you're lucky you get an interview. Write a clear, brief essay and don't show off. Once you get in the professor's office, you'll have plenty of time for song and dance. Find out who you're talking to, and ask questions that show you are interested.
This may not be enough, though. One professor, whose seminar is enormously popular, admits only one or two students without fathers famous enough to be known to him. Another dismisses the written applications in favor of geographical, income-level, racial, and educational balance. Many resort to a lottery past the initial application.
So place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, and take your chances.
****
You will probably hear Registration referred to as a "zoo." Ah yes, but in most zoos you can but popcorn and candy and have a reasonably good time. In this zoo, you are the animals. True, you must wait in line, which is an indignity rarely bestowed on your average giraffe. But once inside, weird people try to do weird things to you. Like get you to settle outstanding term bill balances, denoted by the infamous "Red Dot" of measles fame. And multitudes of undergraduate organizations will try to solicit you.
Many upperclassmen relish Registration. It is, after all, the one time they can enter Memorial Hall, receive a packet of papers from someone, and generally get all the answers to the questions.
To assist you in filling out forms is the Freshman Task Force. These are bright, energetic young people who will remind you of the bouncy cast of the Frosted Mini-Wheats commercials. You may think, "What lovely people, giving up large chunks of their time to assist poor confused freshmen. Someday I'll be like that, too." Well, you'll have to wait in line, sport. These folks are paid.
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This summer you received a reading list. And because you thirst for knowledge, you have read each book carefully, checked out some contemporary criticism, and jotted down a few random notes to help guide your discussions with friends and roommates. If you did all these things, you are at the wrong school, pointy-head. The proper response to your roommates scholarly query, "What did you think of those books?" is, "What books?" or "Let's smoke some dope."
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If you're coming from East Aurora, lectures may be a new phenomenon for you. So a few are planned for Freshman week, to break you in. Since these events are one-timers and large audiences are guaranteed, the professors involved seem less bored than in regular classes. Freshman week lectures might be some of the most provocative and interesting you hear for the next four years.
"Education and Society: The Harvard Tradition" will be a big draw, mostly because it is a general enough topic for anyone. James Q. Wilson is widely recognized as a good performer, even by those who consider his authoritarian and bureaucratic leanings a little on the fascist side.
William Alfred, speaking on "Beckett's Waiting for Godot and After", is reportedly one of the nicest professors around, and for the English Department, this says a lot. The topic is rather interesting, too, although most people will probably re-enact the end of Godot: "Let's go. (They do not move)."
Jorges Dominiquez is a well-respected political scientist, but a little dull as a speaker. Don't go to his lecture on communist regimes, but do stop and talk with him afterwards.
James Hays, professor of geology, will discuss comparative planetology; this may be rocky going, but it's solid stuff.
****
If you have to take one of the Language Placement tests, you stand a decent chance of flunking it. After all--if you were any good in your language, you would have gotten that 560 or better on your Achievement Tests. Harvard has a basic language requirement, and if you screw up the test, it'll cost you four hours a South Africa question, it is possible the Corporation may listen a little more carefully.
EDUCATIONAL INNOVATIONS
This was the year of the Core. You've all heard of it, but you probably don't understand it. Don't worry--you're not alone. After the nation's press got through trumpeting the Core as a major educational revolution, it's a wonder anyone could figure it out.
Harvard's new Core Curriculum is the product of a few years of careful and wide-ranging study of Harvard's curriculum and General Education program--the first major such re-evaluation since 1945. Prompted by complaints about Gen Ed's intellectual shoddiness and overgrowth, Dean Rosovsky began the re-examination of Harvard's undergraduate curriculum.
Last year, Harvard decided on the format of the Core--students would be required to take a total of eight half-courses in five major areas--Literature and Arts, Historical Study, Social Analysis and Moral Reasoning, Foreign Languages and Cultures, and Sciences--that would contain a number of precisely-defined courses designed to teach specific "modes of thought." This year, Rosovsky and other faculty members set about drawing up these courses--with the help of a few token students forbidden to talk to their peers about the shape of the Core. When the courses were unveiled this spring, many students wondered again what the fuss was all about. At first glance, the courses seemed as diffuse and specialized as Ged Ed. This fall, however, will tell if the guidelines for teaching "modes of thought" so exhaustively debated by the Faculty will have any effect.
In other attempts at educational innovation, the Faculty passed tutorial reform legislation last year mandating that senior faculty members teach a certain percentage of tutorials. Glen W. Bowersock '57, associate dean of the Faculty for undergraduate education, pushed the reforms through an unwilling Faculty. But no one has indicated how they will be enforced.
Educational crossfire also hit two interdisciplinary majors: Afro-American Studies and Women's Studies. A coalition of concerned student groups this year led protests against what they say as systematic attempts to weaken the Afro-American Studies Department. Ever since Af-Am's stormy birth ten years ago, detractors have attacked its academic validity. They believe Af-Am has no methodology and could better be studied through an interdisciplinary committee. But supporters say the demotion to a committee would cripple Af-Am by removing its right to tenure professors and choose its own curriculum. This fall an Overseers' Visiting Committee will give its opinion.
A group of women this year also fought to get Women's Studies established as a department, but they had to settle for a list of courses relating to women in the catalogue. Many of the courses, however, do not seem to have much to do with women.
TOWN-GOWN
Animosity between Harvard and Cambridge runs deep, but observers say last year marked one of the lowest points ever in their hate-hate relationship. Among the reasons for the tension include Harvard's tax-exempt status, which deprives Cambridge of millions of dollars in taxes. Harvard does pay some in-lieu-of-tax money--paid to local government voluntarily instead of property taxes--but Cambridge officials' eyes glitter when they talk about that potential revenue.
It is Harvard's extensive real estate holding in Cambridge, however, that cause the real town-gown friction. The University owns so much land that last year it created its own real estate company. Harvard's behavior as a landlord, however, has not been particularly exemplary. The University tried to use its rights as a large real estate holder (in the Square over 20 per cent) to block a proposal to limit the height of buildings in Harvard Square. The city filed a lawsuit challenging Harvard's move.
A number of tenant groups have also clashed with the University, pointing to eviction attempts and, in one case, health code violations. One prominent Harvard tenant, the Thomas More Bookshop, recently lost its Holyoke St. store because Harvard rented out the space to a pizzeria. The shop, one of the only ones devoted to scholarly religious works, will move to a spot Harvard provided in Holyoke Center--one its owner says she cannot afford.
These incidents, among others, prompted the City Council to send a letter to the Board of Overseers protesting Harvard's "consistent poor judgement and insensitivity" in its relations with the city. And Cambridge officials are still worried about Harvard's future plans for its real estate. This election year will undoubtedly heat up the battle still more
