Not only that, but Andy's city hired "criminals and lunatics" to work with him, so for him, it wasn't the heat, it wasn't the humidity, but the "working with the criminals that I didn't like."

Henrietta, another sophomore, says she worked in a research lab injecting mice and pipetting "stuff into each plate of assay material." And then she injected a few more mice and pipetted some more stuff.

And again. And again.

That was the interesting part. In the very beginning, "I didn't really have anything to do," she says, so she "flipped through medical journals" just to look busy. Her roommate was busy and that wasn't much better. Henrietta's roommate worked for a law firm going through files and throwing away duplicate documents, and--for a little variety--xeroxed hundreds of pages.

But some students seek out boredom, for a change of pace from the often frenetic Harvard lifestyle. Freshman Kenny says he was "pleasantly bored" during six weeks of vegetating through the same routine every day--playing tennis, reading, practicing violin, watching television and sleeping. Kenny began his summer with a vacation in Korea, and when he came home, he "realized the security of the consistency of the schedule" in Ohio. "I did the same things every day. It was actually quite relaxing," he says.

He considered getting a headstart on studying for placement exams or classes, but changed his mind, he says. "I knew Harvard was going to be so dynamic, I needed some stillness for a little bit before I ventured off." And stillness, he--and others who chose to spend a quiet summer--got.

Would they do it again?

Catch them later when they wake up.

* The names in this story have been changed to protect the bored.