Ever since I first stepped onto campus for prefrosh weekend four years ago, I’ve done a lot of complaining about Harvard. That beautiful afternoon quickly turned into a frigid night, during which I went to a party that, predictably, just didn’t compare to the one I had attended at another school’s visiting program. I eventually decided to come to Harvard in spite of this less-than-thrilling experience, but my complaining was only getting started.

I was lucky enough to live with wonderful roommates during my freshman year. They got to know me, never judged me, and became my salvation as I struggled with my science Core courses and endured the skin-piercing winds that turned my walks to Annenberg into Alaskan expeditions. But these bitter elements soon melted into the month of March, bringing with it an entirely new challenge: blocking. I wound up in Currier, while my roommates—some of the closest friends I had ever had—were assigned to Dunster, the veritable opposite pole of the Harvard world. Oh, Harvard, I groaned, why couldn’t you produce a better system?

As my time here continued, so did my complaints. I complained about issues of diversity, unfair “remedies” to the grade inflation that I never saw, the men, and the weather. As an executive of The Harvard Crimson, I listened to—and sympathized with—the complaints of many other members of the Harvard community. So focused was I on what was wrong with Harvard that, for a good portion of my undergraduate career, I never really took notice of what was right with it.

But that all changed one day, when I began to realize just how amazing some of my experiences here have been. I remembered working on a research paper for my history class and realizing that the author of my primary source lived on campus. I remembered opening the Boston Globe and seeing the face of one of my closest friends on the cover of the living section. And I remembered a casual conversation with my roommate about the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie/Jennifer Aniston love triangle morphing into an intense intellectual debate that included historical allusions and referenced primary sources.

At that point, after so much time spent on criticizing my school’s flaws, I started to truly appreciate just how unusual and special a place Harvard is. Since then, I’ve gone to a fun party or two, stayed close with those distantly located freshman roommates, and enjoyed living in the Quad. Most importantly, I’ve come to realize that although we all know the faults of this University, we also must remember what and who Harvard has given us. We might have had to endure Siberian weather, grueling Core courses, and trying social challenges, but we’ve also had direct access to some of the most unique thoughts, people, and experiences in the world.

So as my own Harvard career draws to an end, I’ll close with the advice that my time here has taught me: open your eyes while you still have the chance, and really see what’s been around you for four years. Once you do that, you can proudly put on your suit, jump on a plane, or buy books for graduate school to begin to fulfill the legacy of excellence that you nurtured at our dear, imperfect Harvard.



Monica M. Clark ’06, who was a Crimson executive editor in 2005, is a history and literature concentrator in Currier House.