Money, money, money. Cambridge real estate is costly by any standard, especially around the illustrious Harvard Square area. Yet every year, despite the price tag, some undergraduates buck the prevailing trend with their decision to leave the brick (or concrete) walls of their Harvard Houses to live off-campus. And while fleeing dormitory life is common at some colleges, at Harvard only a small percentage of students pursue this option.
“I’ve had more than one real estate agent say, ‘We didn’t think that undergraduates were allowed to live off-campus,’” says Greg R. Scruggs ’08. He considers himself extremely normal for wanting to live outside of a House. “Living in a dorm—it’s kind of juvenile after twenty,” he says.
Xiaowei Wang ’08 has lived off campus since her freshman year. Although the composition of Wang’s blocking group was part of her decision to make the move, she also says that her mother’s job as a cafeteria worker at Tufts gives her a different perspective.
“I’ve seen the other side of the University,” says Wang. “I don’t like the idea of other people maintaining my space for me.”
Whether an experiment in adult living, a quest for privacy, or a forced move, many students quietly move off campus. But is Harvard equipped to deal with these students?
GET OUT AND STAY OUT
For Jitka M. Tomas ’09, a member of the Harvard Track and Field team and the International Relations Council, living off-campus is not a choice. As an undergraduate with a two-year old daughter, Tomas is not allowed to live in undergraduate housing.
Although Harvard Housing Services usually only works with graduate students and faculty, it made a special exception to help Tomas find housing in an apartment behind Greenough. “I live closer to the Yard than most on-campus students,” she says.
However, due to stipulations in the contract, the only other person Tomas can live with has to be a spouse. Since she is currently undergoing a divorce, she has no one with whom to split the steep rent, which is double what most other off-campus students are paying.
Although Tomas’s case may be unique, she is not alone: some Harvard students feel forced to live off-campus because of cramped rooms and strange housing regulations.
Alexandra M. Gutierrez ’08 moved off-campus in her junior year. After a semester, Gutierrez, who is a former Crimson magazine staff writer, decided she wanted to return to campus for her senior year. However, due to misinformation and miscommunication, Gutierrez missed a paperwork deadline and was unable to return.
“It was frustrating that it seemed to be just paperwork and that things probably could have been done,” she says. “I got this feeling that once you’re out, you’re out.”
ON YOUR OWN
Even though both Gutierrez and Tomas have had to live off-campus, they have tried to remain as active as possible in Harvard life. Both agree it has not been easy. When Tomas returned to campus after a brief hiatus—as a second-semester freshman unable to return to the dorms—she often felt out of the loop. Since she was affiliated with Dudley House, she was off of the Freshman Dean’s Office’s radar.
“Sometimes you fall through the cracks. I didn’t know anything about deadlines for concentrations,” she says.
Gutierrez felt some vertigo as well, specifically when she realized she was not receiving emails about fellowships advising.
“It started to become unclear how much communication that I received was what I should have received as a student still affiliated with the house,” says Gutierrez. “I know that there was at least one major official e-mail that I did not receive, and that made me start to wonder if I wasn’t getting other ones as well.”
Jared J. Pearlman ’08 decided to move off-campus this fall. When he returned to campus, he was surprised and a little wounded when his swipe card was canceled, preventing him from getting into storage and to extracurricular meetings within Houses. Harvard policy allows all students who move off campus retain their swipe access. Pearlman says that the default appears to be that students must request to have their access maintained.
“It kind of sent the message, ‘If you want to be detached from us, so be it,’” he says.
LIVING THE REAL LIFE
While the forced separation is problematic in some ways, many off-campus students cite detachment as the main reason they wanted to move outside the Harvard bubble.
“I feel like Harvard can be very overwhelming and invasive,” says Wang. “I like my privacy. I like living as an actual human being.”
The desire to get outside of Harvard and experience Boston as a real city was a major factor in Dhaval Chadha’s ’08 decision to move off campus. “I wanted to put myself farther from Harvard,” he says.
Pearlman and Wang both feel more seasoned for the world by their experience. “There was a part of me that wanted to have the responsibility of maintaining a place of my own, being able to cook for myself,” says Pearlman.
The responsibilities of budgeting for utilities, groceries, and travel bring the students one step closer to the real world. “I don’t really feel like a student anymore, I feel like a working adult,” says Gutierrez. “My life doesn’t revolve around the University anymore.”
A HOUSE IS A HOME, FOR NOW
The attitude that Harvard undergrads who live off-campus are an anomaly informs the way that both students and University officials approach leaving the House system. The freedom and detachment the current system provides can be a blessing for those looking to escape Harvard’s claustrophobic confines, but also makes it difficult to stay connected to resources and opportunities.
Given Harvard’s entrenched House system, it remains to be seen if the number of students who live off-campus will ever change. In the meantime, at least this small percentage of off-campus students can call themselves pioneers of a cause for a more responsibility-filled student life. And they will likely have better food.
CORRECTION: The
Sept. 26 magazine article "Outside the Bubble, Out of the Loop"
incorrectly reported that
Harvard was to blame for the fact that Alexandra M. Gutierrez '08
missed a deadline for filing paperwork to return to campus. In fact, Gutierrez
pointed to confusion about deadlines, not a miscommunication by
Harvard, as the reason for missing the deadline. In addition, one
clause erroneously and inadvertently included in the originalversion of this article has been deleted.
