CAMBRIDGE, England—John Harvard graduated from Emmanuel College at Cambridge University and then immigrated to Massachusetts where he founded Harvard College in the image of his alma mater in 1636. Over three-and-a-half centuries later, I have journeyed back across the pond to see how the two cities of Cambridge, and their two esteemed institutions of higher learning, measure up side-by-side.
America the (not so) Beautiful
If it is possible to find a place that hates President George W. Bush more than our infamous “Kremlin on the Charles,” I think I’ve found it. While Tony Blair is still “with us,” the students at Cambridge are, to borrow Bush’s words, “with the terrorists.” In response to the overwhelming hostility toward my homeland, I’ve embarked upon my own American jihad in the streets of Cambridge—draping myself in an American flag, waving obnoxious signs boasting that “Blair’s our bitch” and blasting Lee Greenwood’s classic “I’m Proud to be an American” on my stereo. I am also constantly referencing our victory in the revolutionary war, the collapse of the British empire and our current status as a superpower.
FCUK Abercrombie
I left a Cambridge, Mass. colonized by cell phone stores and questionably cool national clothing outlets only to arrive in a city similarly besmirched by the commercialization of historically hallowed sites. Eurotrash stores like FCUK dominate, but there’s also a Gap for all your classic, American-style clothing needs. Sadly Abercrombie and Fitch is yet to arrive, which is a shame because, in a strange way, I miss those massive homoerotic twins staring down at me as I wait to cross Harvard Square.
The Frappe Fix
The fair trade coffee enthusiasts would be equally horrified in Cambridge, England, where the café culture is dominated by caramel frappucinos and venti white chocolate mochas. In the immediate vicinity alone, there are some four Starbucks, with many more yet to be personally encountered in the greater Cambridge area.
Melting Pot Calling the Kettle Black
Perhaps the biggest difference between the two Cambridges is that Cambridge, England lacks both the multicultural benefits and absurdities of daily Harvard life. In fact, you might say that Cambridge University is about as diverse as the Republican Congress. (Please note that JC Watts has retired).The local college paper ran a story that there are more students at Cambridge University with the last name “White” than there are actual black students. There are almost no Black, Asian or Jewish students here, which makes Harvard a much more interesting and tolerant place in comparison. As a result, Cambridge England also lacks the Harvard-style cultrual sensitivities. This is for the most part a good thing for our own Harvard, but I must admit that it is rather liberating to be in an environment where I don’t constantly feel the need to flash my politically correct credentials before engaging in a controversial political discussion—usually on racial profiling or affirmative action—or telling an off-color joke. While I certainly prefer our version of higher learning, Cambridge refreshingly lacks the sense of fatalism that abounds among many Harvard students and groups. People tend to be less sensitive—not insensitive, but certainly less quick to raise the flag of moral indignity that seems to be constantly waving at Harvard. Can you imagine, for example, a Harvard House being named after the body of Christ—as Corpus Christi is here?
Cambridge University isn’t prone only to religious and ethnic homogeneity—in a clear indicator of uniformity of economic class, everyone even sounds the same here. The notable exception is the kids from up north who pronounce their “th’s” like “f’s,” as in “I was wiff so and so.”
Let’s Go Cambridge
Despite the dearth of diversity, however, the tourists still flock to this Cambridge by the bus-load. Every morning as I walk to lectures, I sigh with nostalgia as I stop and wait for eager tourists to take pictures with their six different digital cameras and camcorders. At these moments, it’s just like being back in Harvard Yard again.
Sex, Lies and Cable
I was really excited to come over here because I had this idealized notion of European TV as constantly resembling Cinemax at three in the morning. Well, I learned that it is indeed like that in continental Europe, but the daytime soft-core pornography never crossed the English Channel. Lest we forget, we Americans inherited all our Victorian notions of sexual repression from the motherland.
Dorm Crew Plus
There’s a free maid service that makes my bed every morning and changes my sheets once a week. This is nothing short of incredible. I’ve been here a month, and my sheets have been changed four more times than they were last semester.
Football Follies
Watching the Super Bowl over here was a unique experience—and not only because it started at 1 a.m, but because Seal was doing the color commentary. As if that wasn’t enough, ten minutes into the game the camera cut to the on-site reporter, who was none other than MC Hammer. The one satisfying part about watching the Super Bowl here was that all my British friends assumed that I was an NFL expert and fired questions at me like I was John Madden. As opposed to admitting that I didn’t know much more than they did, I just made up all the answers.
Moore Misconceptions
Being at a new college is like Freshmen Week all over again. I get my food and then walk around with my tray, nervously scoping the dining hall to see if there’s anyone I know. There never is, so I go up to a random group of British students and awkwardly sit down next to them. They always have plenty of questions for me—but as opposed to the usual, “Where are you from, what are you studying, what dorm are you in?” they ask me, “Do you own a gun?” (No), “Does your father?” (No), “Can you get one at the local bank?” (Nope again). Essentially they draw all their assumptions about American culture from Michael Moore movies. Only once we’ve established that I live on the east coast, and hence don’t own a gun and don’t have any intention of getting one, can we move on to the more mundane questions of place of residence and class choices.
The Sex Gap
Numerous Crimson articles and Independent surveys have highlighted the problem and attempted to locate its cause. None of these endeavors, however, have ever compared the social situation at Harvard with a control example—for instance another prestigious school with an equally ambitious and homely student body, albeit with worse dental hygiene. So here is my attempt to shed some scientific light on the dire sexual situation at Harvard.
Question 1: Does the original Cambridge provide more fertile sexual soil than the barren Wasteland across the pond?
Answer: Having been here over a month, I can confidently say: Yes, it does. Students here at Cambridge seem to find a lot more dates, romance, and sex than Harvard students back home.
Question 2: Why does this “Sex Gap” exist?
I have found that the major reasons for this “Sex Gap” are both structural and cultural, but before I begin examining these two factors, I realize that my analysis is susceptible to the critique that John Stauffer, associate professor of English and American Civilization, disturbingly leveled on Lecturer on History and Literature Timothy P. McCarthy ’93 in an “American Protest Literature” lecture last spring. McCarthy was commenting on the sexually starved status of the Harvard community and Stauffer said, “Speak for yourself.” So yes, I concede that there are indeed personal factors to account for—my own awkwardness for example—but these individual character flaws are beyond the scope of my experiment, and I will thus confine it to cultural/ structural factors.
Structural Advantages of Cambridge:
#1. The drinking age is 18. Nothing Harvard students ever say or do will be able to compensate for this advantage. The ultimate social lubricant is no longer confined to the cool kids with fake ID’s. At Cambridge, everyone gets pissed in a fairly egalitarian fashion. And the university provides the booze. Three nights a week, students can sign up for “formal hall,” which is a three-course dinner in the college dining hall where the university provides every student with their own bottle of wine. You get to wear the cool gowns (like in the Harry Potter movies) and play drinking games in the dining hall—which usually seems to get the romantic juices flowing.
#2. The college bar. Basically it’s the Quincy Grille, if you could get a pint of Guinness or a vodka tonic with the chicken fingers. It’s the social space that everyone at Harvard dreams of. There aren’t any elite social gatekeepers—everyone in the college seems to feel comfortable there—and it’s got foosball, a pool table and darts. There are also different theme nights which are dubbed “bops.” Basically, it’s a dance where they play bad American music and everyone gets “trollied.” The recent Valentine’s Day bop, had a traffic light theme. If you were taken you wore red; if you were up for being “pulled,” you wore orange; and if you were up for being pulled by any stray farm animal, you wore green. For me, it was really a utilitarian calculus—would wearing green ultimately make me less pullable? I went orange.
Cultural Advantages of Cambridge
On one level, the cultural attitudes regarding sex are fairly similar. Both campuses seem to reject Victorian sexual mores as outdated and oppressive. The major difference is that Harvard students have trouble finding productive outlets (beyond their T1 Internet cable) to channel these counter-cultural instincts. nd embrace a counter-cultural ethos. However, Harvard students seem to have trouble fulfilling this desire for free love. Everyone outside the Salient Editorial board is perfectly willing to transgress natural laws, but the problem is we can’t find anyone to transgress them with. Again, we recognize these sexual conventions are arbitrary social constructions, but there’s just no time to find that perfect someone to slouch towards Gomorrah with.
Why do Cambridge students not have this problem? The simple answer is that they do less stuff. It’s another cliché to say that Harvard kids are too overextended, and no matter how many letters Harry Lewis sends out telling us to take it easy, I don’t anticipate anyone listening. But if we can learn one thing from our parental institution, maybe it is to take ourselves a little less seriously. Kids here are serious about their academics, their intramural sports and their college bar. They don’t spend their entire college career trying to figure out what extracurricular activity defines them as a person.
They hang out on weeknights (a bizarrely liberating experience in lack of productivity), they drink a great deal, and they play I.M. sports. While perhaps contributing less to humanity during their college tenure, they seem to be quite happy overall—which has many benefits of its own. There is virtually nothing we Harvard students can do to compensate
for the structural advantages of Cambridge University, but we do have a degree of agency in the cultural realm. We can seize our sexual destinies by relaxing a bit and enjoying our short college careers—appreciating the fact that we won’t be able to live off of our parents much longer.
Maybe its time for a beer and some foosball.
