Harvard: The Big Picture
The best thing about Harvard is my peers. They are kind, thoughtful, driven and have the potential to make the world a better place.
I spend most of my time at the campus homeless shelter and in Hillel.
Harvard's administration doesn't care much about the undergrads, unfortunately. They just missed a big opportunity to improve student in appointing a new Dean of the College.
Harvard Academic Life
My professors mostly know my name.
The best course I took was Social Thought in Modern America (Hist 1661) with James Kloppenberg. He gives a very challenging, comprehensive reading list and you have to read it all. But in return, he gives excellent lectures, hires quality teaching fellows and requires that you come to office hours to meet with him. Taking the course triggered a ton of intellectual conversations with my friends over meals. Our study group met every day for at least two hours for a week to prepare for the exam - it was awesome in its intensity.
Students don't really talk about grades. That's probably a good thing for our health.
Education at Harvard is geared towards academic life, which makes a lot of people not care since they are focused on getting a job anyway.
Harvard's Student Body
Harvard is full of high-powered people. It's a very "sink or swim" kind of place. If you're not independent/self-directed, it will take a lot more work to thrive (though it's still possible). If you are though, you have all the world's resources - grants, professors, friends to bounce ideas off of - at your finger tips.
Most students wear polo shirts and jeans to class, a few wear sweatpants.
The dining hall is fairly segregated by race (this is most obvious in the freshman dining hall).
Most students are liberal, but the membership of the Harvard Dems and GOP are about equal (because right-leaning students are much more likely to affiliate)
Harvard Student Activities + Social Life
I'm pretty sure that the Harvard Crimson is the biggest student organization, with something like 700 student editors. More people than that overall participate in athletics though. Phillips Brooks House Association has about 1000 volunteers doing some kind of public service, but it's a lot less cohesive since it's done through about 70 different programs.
Fraternities are not important, though the rich Harvard version of finals clubs are important to some people. That said, I've never partied there and they don't really affect me.
On a Saturday night not drinking: go to the pub and play pool, see a movie, go to a play, go ice skating downtown. During the day: go to Harvard's art museums (3!), natural history museum or anthropology museum.
Athletic events ("The Game" = Harvard-Yale aside) are not well attended.
Harvard Naked Truth
