A Guide to the Good Life

WOODS HOLE--Most students who get to Harvard know how to get A's. The route to a summa is grueling but straightforward. The rules are as subtle as Mao's sayings--both make demands like "Work hard and you will get much done."

But a large number of students happily slip Group II Groove during their first semester here, enjoying long weekends on the Cape and wild nights, while effortlessly bringing home those B plusses that will someday mean bacon.

The guide to the good life has a few inviolable rules. Follow them and you, too, can graduate cum laude general studies.

1. Pick Courses Carefully. There's a reason why preppies and jocks dominate parties--they know all the guts, Pick up the Confi Guide, but follow Topsiders and broad shoulders the first week of classes. (After that, they seem to disappear.) On the other hand, avoid freshmen. Go for graduate seminars and 200-level courses.

2. Read With a Plan. Don't read in advance, unless it's the professor's book--then you can skip the lectures. In a pinch, book reviews can be even more rewarding than books, and introductions more important than conclusions. Scanning appropriate pages of Langer's Encyclopedia of World History guarantees your spot on the dean's list.

3. Originality Counts. Creativity has killed a lot of cats, so be smart--don't fight city hall. Swallow a little pride. Live to fight another day. Discretion is the better part of valor.

4. Write Legibly--Except on foreign language tests.

5. Make Your Point--at least three times per essay. Aim for those check marks in the margin with put-away words like "clearly" or "doubtlessly." If you can consistently get two or more check marks with the same idea put different ways, handling law school will be no problem.

6. Cramming. Do it. Know no dignity. Make those bastards rip the note cards from your hands. Do not go gently into that good night.

7. Be courteous--to the people who count. Section people and secretaries are far more important than the professors they work for. Keep a civil tongue on their boots. Remember: scruples went out with saddleshoes.