The contrast is particularly striking for non-resident students who used to live on campus. John T. Bender '88, who moved off campus after living in the "dreary and dreadful" Quad, says, "It really helps at the end of the day to get away from the Harvard environment and be by yourself and relax fully. Living off campus you get back to your own little homestead, and it's good."

Whether or not they like the separation, nonresident students say it nevertheless leads to new lifestyles and problems which resident students do not face, including a feeling of schizophrenia. "There's a definite sense of living two lives," Ellis says. "I have a life at Harvard and a life here in Arlington...I exist in both spheres simultaneously." Similarly, Barletta says she has two groups of friends, one at Harvard and one in Brighton, and "they rarely ever mix." But she adds, "It's nice to keep them separate."

The connections between these two worlds are buses, trains or bicycles, and many non-residents complain that the commute can be rough, particularly when it snows. "The Red Line is just a disaster," Welch says, and "the parking is terrible. The time spent going between Dorchester and Harvard is a real pain."

Anne Hogan Wheeler '89, who lives with her husband in Boston, says she nearly missed her Shakespeare final last semester because "the Red Line broke down and I was freaking out." As a result, some commuters will not take 9:00 a.m. classes or will sleep through them and watch lectures on videotape.

Others make the best of an otherwise dreary commute. Zern says she uses her time on the bus to read daily portions of the Torah, and Petipas says she often meets "interesting" people on the bus, such as "one woman who sat next to me and screamed to me that I was Jewish and she hated Jews. I had to move to another seat."

Off-campus students face other practical problems, especially with reserve reading which may not be taken out overnight from Lamont and Hilles until 8:00 p.m. on weekdays. Commuter students therefore must stay on campus later than they would prefer in order to take their reading home. "The major problem living off campus has been the libraries." Ellis says. "The reserved reading thing is a drag. It creates a hassle for me."

John Lanham '70. Associate Librarian at Lamont Library, defends the reserve reading policy, saying that if the library let books out earlier it would be "tying up the books for a longer period of time" and "affecting some students who have late classes."

"Although there are commuters, and I myself was a commuter when I was here," Lanham says, "the majority of students are residential," and the libraries seek "the greatest good for the greatest number." The student-faculty Committee on Libraries has jurisdiction over the reserve reading policy, so if many commuter students complained, the committee could change the rule, Lanham says.

In addition, some commuters complain that they have no place to go between classes during the day. Dudley House provides its students with a dining hall, a library, a dark room and a game room in Lehman Hall. But some students say that the Yard building does not really fit all of their needs. "The library is kind of boring, and the cafeteria is not that ideal either," says Maya Dumermuth '88.

Non-residents say it can be a hassle to plan each day in advance so they can bring all the requisite books and athletic equipment with them to school. Dudley House tries to minimize this problem by providing lockers--also in Lehman Hall--for commuter students. "Thank God for the Dudley House locker system," Wheeler says. "I usually have my gym bag and a million books, and I look like a bag lady so it's a good thing I have my locker."

Many commuters say a big advantage of living off campus is having their own kitchen. Petipas says she likes cooking her own "exotic concoctions" and "strange Japanese things," and Ellison says, "I like to cook my own food because it's better."

Living off campus also provides a quiet atmosphere for writing senior theses, according to Welch. In addition, commuters say it teaches them what real life is like. "If you are at Harvard you are so protected," says Dumermuth, who lives with her husband in Somerville. "You don't have to struggle to get a job. But if you know people who are in the working world, then you know other aspects of the city."

Married students who commute to Harvard, like Dumermuth, have very different lifestyles than resident students and even other non-resident students.

"Many of the social pressures that students face don't really confront me," says DeGraw, whose wife expects to bear their child in July "For example, dating. All of the headaches, like 'Will she like me?', 'Who'm I going out with this weekend?', 'Can I get a date?', those types of problems don't distract me."

Dumermuth agrees, saying, "You don't have to worry about meeting the right person and all that stuff...Studies are so hard. It's good to be able to concentrate."