Some organizations like The Harvard Lampoon, The Harvard Crimson and final clubs are especially proficient at building close relationships between members that stand the test of time.

The Women's Leadership Project, founded in 1988, aims to give undergraduate women the same networking opportunities as their male peers--both with their classmates and with alumnae.

"Networking is intimidating for some women," says Gretchen A. Hoff '00, last year's director of the Women's Leadership Network, a subset of the project. "Because Harvard has been a male-dominated institution for so long and so many alumni are male, I think it is important for women to have an 'old girls club.'"

"Hopefully it will help someone land a job," Hoff adds.

She says that it is sometimes more difficult for women to make their way in professions like investment banking and consulting where there are few female role models.

"I have benefited from and participated in Harvard feminist networks--as an undergraduate, graduate student and most recently a faculty member," says Ann Pellegrini '84, who taught at Harvard and is now an associate professor of women's studies at Barnard College.

She worked at the Murray Research Center on a Radcliffe internship during the summer between her junior and senior years at Harvard. Her supervisor from that summer became a good friend and now works as the policy director at a major feminist organization in Washington.

"I have connected feminist students interested in doing activist work...to her organization," Pellegrini says. "The students were hired on their merits, although it did not hurt that they had letters of reference from someone my friend knows and trusts."