'Suck It Up, Kid'

Bresman blames part of the difficulty of making up one's mind on the indecision he says is imposed on students by Harvard itself.

"They want you to pick a concentration at the end of freshman year, but they included me in a panel which seems to say its okay [to be indecisive]," he says. "[The attitude is] suck it up, kid, and make up your mind."

A large part of the problem comes from thinking too much about details like classes, says Bresman.

When he ran the Hillel "assassin" game last semester, Bresman would often spend hours contemplating the validity of kills, often holding up the two week-long game.

The Road to Recovery

With indecision running rampant through Harvard's hallowed halls, many harried undergraduates say they have begun to seek out a solution.

Sara S. Krause '97 is a crew on the sailing team, and in the past, her indecision has caused her to accidentally ram other boats.

"There are too many good arguments for everything so I can't make up my mind," Krause says. "Thoughts roll around in your head and you get different points of view as you go."

But Krause says she has been positively influenced by her more decisive classmates.

"I guess it helps just because you're surrounded by completely decisive people so it starts to rub off," she says.

So Krause now makes up her mind by acting on her last thought and never re-thinking her decisions.

"I waffle back and forth a lot, [but] when it comes down to the line, you figure you have to choose," Krause says.

Like Krause, Kenton H. Beerman '98 says he has also been working to cure himself of his problem with indecision.

"I always outline for myself a variety of options of things to do, and I can never make up my mind which things to do," Beerman said. "I'm on the road to recovery."