They probably expected a protest from the faculty and graduate students; after all, their careers are involved.

But why do I protest? I'll be able to graduate without difficulty and I already have a job for next year. My roommates sometimes ask me, "Why do you even care?"

The best answer to this question often comes from undergraduates who have transferred into the Linguistics Department from other concentrations.

They'll say, "I was in X and I felt like nobody cared about me," or, "I was in Y and my sophomore tutorial was the same size as my Core sections," or I was in Z and everyone was always worrying about the curve."

Small classes and intense faculty-student interaction aren't for everyone; some people like to sit at the back of Science Center C or Harvard 201 for their entire undergraduate careers.

These people shouldn't concentrate in Linguistics.

As a second semester senior, I'm a bit philosophical about the whole thing now.

When I asked my advisor to write me a letter of recommendation, he only half-jokingly asked me to remember him when I have a job and he doesn't.

One of the professors in my department is thinking of going to law school.

The atmosphere in the basement of Gray's hall, where Linguistics is headquartered, can sometimes get like the final episode of "M*A*S*H."

I'll be okay; I'll have a Harvard degree. In Linguistic. And maybe someday my diploma will be a collector's item.

But for now, place ask me what I'm concentrating in. And you can even ask, "What is that?" Just don't ask," What wasthat?"

Ronald A. Fein '94 , of Kingston, New York, is a Linguistics concentrator living in Cabot House. His senior thesis is titled, "The Acquisition of the Genitive of Negation in Russian."