Harvard University: Beyond the Widener Steps

When I toured Notre Dame last summer, I was struck by the number of families with young children on the tour. Most of these families included young boys and older men wearing Notre Dame letter jackets, hats, and football jerseys, usually faded from years of wear. The Harvard tour feels the same way: there are legions of reverent families, many from abroad, many dragging along tiny children wearing Harvard logo tee shirts emblazoned with the words "future freshman". These families will inevitably pose on the steps of Widener Library in the Yard, their faces a mixture of pride, anxiety, and determination.

Like Notre Dame, Harvard is a university with fans and with a following. It's a school about which you probably already have preconceived notions, and whose reputation precedes it. And its greatest challenge is convincing you and everyone else of what it is beyond what you think you already know by heart.

If I have any agenda for this tour of colleges, it's that I really, really want to convince you to think of Harvard University as something other than a tourist attraction and the setting of Legally Blonde (which, incidentally, was filmed at UCLA). Yes, Harvard was founded in 1636 and is the oldest college in the United States. Yes, eight US presidents and countless other leaders and public figures studied there. Yes, it is one of the most beautiful college campuses in the country. But it's more than that. And it does a disservice to the institution to not look more closely at what it offers as an undergraduate institution.

A great way to get the students' view of the Harvard experience is to take the Hahvahd tour, an irreverent tour led by current and former students that covers the more fun lore of the university. You'll learn about the Harry Elkins Widener, a 1907 alum who died on the Titanic and whose mother donated books and funds to found the university's main library. The bequest supposedly included the caveat that all future Harvard students would have to pass a swimming test before graduation (because that would have helped on the Titanic?). This story turns out not to be true, but it's certainly fun and certainly funny. The Hahvahd tour is also great because it covers some of the more mundane features of the Harvard undergraduate life: details about the food in the dining hall that looks like the Great Hall from the Harry Potter books, tidbits about the personalities of the undergraduate houses where students live for the three years following their first year in the freshmen dorms, and traditions like the Head of the Charles rowing race and the Harvard-Yale game. These anecdotes are a helpful reminder that, in some ways, Harvard College is just another college--it's a place where 18- to 22-year-olds work hard and play hard in pursuit of their bachelor's degrees.

One thing I love about the Harvard undergraduate experience is its structure. Every spring, there is a two-week "Advising Fortnight" during which underclassmen can talk with professors, attend info sessions, and participate in events geared toward helping them choose their majors, which are called "concentrations" at Harvard. The undergraduate houses have some great built-in advising structures: hand-picked graduate students live in the dorms and serve as advisers for undergrads seeking future study in medicine, law, humanities, and other disciplines. The university has also implemented a new core curriculum that allows students to select courses from across the university to build a meaningful interdisciplinary base for the undergraduate education. Many of Harvard's concentrations are deeply interdisciplinary, from the historic History and Literature program to the History of Science program to the newest division at Harvard, the School of Engineering and Applied Science. All of these resources help students take advantage of what really makes Harvard great: it's an extremely large university (20,000+ students, including about 6000 undergraduates) filled with people who love to learn and love to talk about learning. It is the most extensive academic buffet you'll find anywhere, and luckily, there are tons of great ways to approach it and make the most of it.

One of the most impressive things about Harvard is that it's not stuck in, say, 1636. This is a place remarkably receptive to change. While I was a student, one of my classmates started a campaign for all Harvard dining halls to only use cage-free eggs. By the end of that school year, cage-free eggs became a university policy. Students called for a more green campus; every bathroom I encountered on campus (okay, I looked around after I discovered the first one) has low-flow toilets. The Holyoke Center, pictured at left, is one of the tallest buildings on campus and the home to major administrative offices. It now has a series of wind turbines on top of it. To me, Harvard is great because it lets great students be themselves here. It lets the students shape the character of the academic life.

So what makes Harvard great is NOT that it's old or that it's famous. It's that there are so many ways to be a Harvard student. The admissions office at Harvard is quick to point out that there is no magic bullet for getting in, either: they're NOT just looking for perfect test scores or perfect grades or particular achievements. They're looking for people who will love the mad rush of activity that happens every day at Harvard, and they're interested in bringing as many exciting, energetic, interesting people to that table as they can. So don't think that the way to get to Harvard is to pose hopefully and studiously on the steps at Widener. Instead, work hard, play hard, and explore the world around you--that's what it takes to get here, and that's what it takes to make the most of it.