It’s an ultimate rite of passage.
On the Thursday before spring break, blocking groups from Weld to Wigglesworth rip open their housing letters and sprint to Annenberg to celebrate or commiserate with their future Housemates.
But for freshmen who end up “floating” in the lottery, the trip to the ’Berg is a solitary one. Though floating seems to be universally dreaded, FM tracked down several contented upperclassmen who flew solo.
Tom E. Osborne ’08 went stag last year to avoid blocking drama. “In the grand scheme of things, blocking didn’t seem that important. I didn’t have strong feelings about who I lived with, so I didn’t want another thing to think about,” Osborne wrote in an e-mail. Osborne ended up in Kirkland House, where he now rooms with two other floaters, Daniel Payan ’08 and Philip K. Hafferty ’08.
Payan, however, was an unwitting floater. His intended roommate filled out the housing form under his own name, thinking Payan could add his name afterward.
“Floating was a mistake, but it worked out well,” Payan said. “I saw it as an opportunity to make more friends and meet more people.”
When her blocking plans collapsed at the last minute, Arielle A. Fridson ’08 ended up floating. She’s happy she did.
“These are people I might never have met given how easy it is to fall back on freshman year acquaintances, but now they’re the ones I can’t imagine my life at Harvard without,” Fridson wrote in an e-mail.
Hafferty cautions that floating is not for everyone.
“It depends on your personality...there are people who would get a thrill [from the risk of floating], or want to escape the blocking drama,” Hafferty explained.
Hey, at least it beats another year in Canaday.
