When people ask why I chose Harvard over other schools in my senior year of high school, I always try to give an objective answer, as if I could quantitatively deduce my decision: interesting courses, a diverse student body, great reputation, and all of the other familiar factors. Few of us openly admit which card really trumped our decision. For almost too man of us, it was certainly the mystical and romantic fascination our society has with the institution. And like many others, I wanted to see what it was all about.
But within weeks of arriving, maybe even days, the complaints begin to burgeon in the yard. Out-of-the-loop advisers, a frustrating social life, incompetent teaching fellows, bad luck in course lotteries, long lines at the dining hall, and too many course requirements begin the list, with that list growing all of the time. The complaints are in the back of my mind every day, yet at the end of every summer, I am all too anxious to head back to Cambridge.
Even though we are all challenging the romanticism we heard so much about, few of us transfer to other colleges or give less than a three on CUE Guide evaluation forms. There is something inside of us that has an eerie respect and devotion to the institution. Harvard has stained us. Once you come in, you are never your old self again.
I am one of the brainwashed. I never ran for student council in high school. I assumed it was completely bogus. Yet for some reason, the allure of trying to make life here more fair, more fun, and more like what we dreamed about was too much for me to resist. I hate so much about this institution, and like those who stage protests and lodge complaints, I love to hate Harvard.
But it’s that love-hate relationship that has actually made me optimistic about the future of this place we often call home. While most things we expect to be panaceas end up letting us down, students are in a unique position over the course of the next few years to dramatically reshape Harvard and make it more like we hoped it would be.
I hope the expansion of the University into Allston and Watertown will lead to the departure of many administrative officers and a school from the Cambridge campus. We shall soon see if the President and deans make the right choices by allowing the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to dramatically expand in Cambridge. The dreams of a contiguous College campus from Mather House to the Quad could very well be a reality.
Dramatic space expansion will help us get more faculty members, which means more courses and more contact. More space for student housing might give more room to be productive and healthy. More high-tech classroom space could change the way Harvard professors are expected to teach. And with tough advocacy and a little bit of luck, I will come back for my reunion and walk into a student center. If the College does not get tossed aside, as it often is, new space in Cambridge will change our academic community forever.
Not only will undergraduates have to fight for physical expansion in the year ahead, but intellectual expansion as well. The curricular review which is about to take off in full force gives me hope that we can breathe life into a curriculum that feels stale and ready for retirement. A new general education requirement allowing non-concentrators to learn about the most relevant issues of the future in the disciplines they do not study but ought to know might lead to a domino effect for higher education across the country. Better advising, new incentives for faculty to teach interdisciplinary courses in new fields, and fewer burdensome requirements in the concentrations are all fair game. The Faculty must actively embrace student opinion during this review, since it will ultimately effect an entire generation of Harvard students.
The Undergraduate Council will be ready not only to tackle these deeply complex long-term issues, but will fight for improvements we can see while we are still here. We hope to fight for more fair Harvard with enhanced financial aid, more support for those in need of better help, and alleviate frustration on a number of academic and non-academic venues. We hope to reform our grants process to make the greatest impact on campus life. We are also fully prepared to get back into the business of producing great concerts and other social events for the community.
It’s our duty as undergraduates today to make known to administrators, faculty members, planners and alumni our wishes for a better Harvard. For all of our complaining about the laundry list of frustrations, Harvard is a part of us. So let’s turn that hate and frustration into action so we don’t have to be so embarrassed about the love.
Rohit Chopra ’04 is a special concentrator in Adams House. He is president of the Harvard Undergraduate Council.
