All the same, Costello says she understands Pananen's nostalgia for their home state. "I do miss it," she admits. "It's a great place to live. There are so many misconceptions about what it's like to live there--I wish people knew the state better."

If Pananen and Costello represent opposite poles of Alaskan students' experiences at Harvard, there are some things which almost all of them seem to agree upon.

"The winters are worse in Cambridge," says Kenai resident Philip Araoz '90 of Quincy House. "It's so wet in Cambridge."

Merriner echoes Araoz's complaint. "I've been as cold here as I've ever been in my whole life," he says. "It's the wet cold that gets you."

Alaskan students also share a common academic problem. Their home state's schools rarely offer good language programs, making it difficult for Alaskans to fulfill Harvard's language requirement.

Tom Kennedy '91 was an all-state wrestler three times at his high school in Kenney Lake, but he was forced to give the sport up this year. "I was failing Spanish," he says. "Lots of people in my class have had three or four years [of the language], but you know, my school wasn't accredited or anything."

Merriner recommended that future Alaskan students avoid "mainstream" languages like French or Spanish altogether.

"If they haven't taken a language before, I would say stay away from the mainstream ones," he advises. "Take Ukrainian or something--where everyone starts at the same level."

Despite his problems with Spanish, Kennedy says his biggest adjustment at Harvard has not been an academic one. He and several other Alaskans say they find life in the Northeast far more structured than they are used to.

"Rules. That was probably the biggest thing," Kennedy says. "You can get in trouble really easily here--you have to be a total pacifist to get by."

Kennedy notes, for example, the displeasure of his proctor when it was discovered that the freshman had given a dislodged parking meter to his Secret Santee in December. "Rajiv Gandhi's limousine had knocked it loose, so I dragged it up to the third floor of Canaday," he remembers. "We had to hide it, though, because it looked like I might get in trouble."

A more mundane, but nonetheless significant concern for Alaskan students is the cost of their Harvard education. The Alaskan economy is inflated beyond that of any other state, a consequence of which is the state's notoriously high cost of living. As Merriner explains, "Because the economy is really expensive, [my parent's] salary is inflated, which makes it hard to get financial aid."

Jennifer Linkous '90 agrees. "Whatever adjustment Harvard makes for us, it's one half of what my dad says it should be."

To offset the problem of tuition, Linkous has worked during the summer at her father's photography store in Fairbanks. For his part, Merriner has fished for salmon on the state's southwestern coast and for crabs in the Bering Sea. Pananen plans to fight fires for the state government this summer--a job, he says, that pays well and is hard to get.

The financial problem is exacerbated by the high travel expenses for Alaskan students--a round trip airplane ticket may cost as much as $2000 for students who don't live in one of the state's largest or southernmost cities.