So great was her desire to go to Harvard that she almost didn't apply anywhere else, much to the dismay of her high-school guidance counselor.

"I only applied to three schools--Stanford, Harvard, and Northwestern," Anderson says. "I did those [Stanford and Northwestern] applications very half-heartedly just so that I could tell my guidance counselor that I did apply to some other schools. But he kept telling me, `You have to apply to a safety school.'"

Obviously, he was wrong. Anderson was accepted and, of course, came. The one culture shock the Georgia resident recalls experiencing during Freshman Week was parties. "I'd never seen so many people drink so much beer in my life," says Anderson, who lived in Grays freshman year. "I've never seen that much consumption."

Ironically enough, in March of her freshman year she received a slip of paper which read "Kirkland House." Guess what happened when she went to her first Kirkland party: "That was the second shock," Anderson says.

Although Anderson had decided to lay aside singing when she arrived at Harvard, she soon changed her mind Anderson tried out for the Opportunes freshman year and went on from there to join Robespierre, a pop/funk band which had become one of the more prominent bands by the time she joined. By the start of her junior year, Anderson's skills were so widely renowned that she was the sole undergraduate chosen to sing with the Boston Pops at Harvard's 350th stadium celebration.

"I think everybody just had fun, basically," Anderson says of that night when she performed before an audience of more than 27,000. "I was impressed with them [the Pops]. They were great."

But her favorite performing experience has come before a much smaller group. "Jazz For Life has been my favorite thing," Anderson says. "It's such a good cause, and you know that whatever you do, people are going to clap anyway. It's such a good feeling attached with that event. It's wonderful."

Anderson's Harvard experience, however, has extended far beyond the stage, and Anderson contends that most of her learning at college has been done away from the microphone.

"Harvard has done a couple of good things for me," Anderson says. "I came here very naive, thinking, `The world is wonderful. The world is good.' Certain experiences have made me aware that the world has its problems."

For instance, Harvard has given Anderson new perspectives on scholarship and elitism. "I don't like Cambridge too much," says the Georgia resident. "I don't like the pretentious atmosphere that I feel a lot of times. It seems here people judge you by your title, because of the intellegentsia that's here."

Anderson has first-hand experience of this kind of attitude through her job at the front desk of the Le Pli Spa at Charles Square. "It's so funny how these people with all kinds of titles behind their name automatically think that I should give them extra-special treatment," Anderson says. "It's funny how they treat me until they find out I go to Harvard. To me, that's kind of bogus because I was the same person I was before they knew where I went. I'll be glad when I'm at a place where people meet you first and then judge whether they like you and respect you."

But the First Class Marshal stresses that she has had no trouble fitting in at Harvard and at Radcliffe. "Being a Black female, I have another connection, the sisterhood of Radcliffe," she says. "The fact that this is our common denominator, I feel a sense of camaraderie."

That camaraderie in the Black community can at times be at problem, especially when it comes to dating, Anderson says. "A lot of the Black people who come in the freshman class bond very quickly, and everyone becomes like a sister or a brother to you," she says. "So that means that dating is out the window. The Black community is so small that anybody who dated anybody was probably your friend, and you would probably feel very awkward, going behind the person that they dated."

But aside from these minor social problems, Anderson says that the Harvard experience, for her, has been excellent. "I think it's a great opportunity for a Black person here. Myself especially, being the child of immigrants, working our way up to where we are now, being able to have the opportunity to go to such an illustrious institution."

"I consider myself blessed," she says. "There are a lot of people in my circle of friends for whom Harvard has been the best thing to happen for them. It's such a launching pad."