The Week Gets Weaker

In more of a pronouncement than an announcement, the cover of the brochure you recently received from the Freshman Dean's Office states--in a suitably elegant typeface--"Freshman Week 1980." Like Campaign '80 and other inevitable shibboleths, there's more nitty gritty to it than meets the awestruck eye. And, if you open the brochure, you will find--in a much less attractive typeface--a barrage of planned activities, required activities, passive activities, massive activities, UPPERCASE LETTERING FOR IMPORTANT ACTIVITIES, and other activities.

Those of you in the apocalyptic Class of '84 who expect to ride into Harvard on a wave of freedom may find yourselves drenched. You will be horses ridden by jocular jockeys, anxious to introduce you to Life at Harvard. You will find yourself in a race with 1600 other eager ponies, most of whom will fashion fabulous pretenses designed as armor for insecurity. The key to Freshman Week, then, is not to let the blinders keep you from seeing straight.

What does this all mean? Well, it means there are people here waiting for you, waiting with a passion--for what is not exactly clear. Now is the time to get paranoid, so that when you get here, you are so numb from paranoia that you can be yourself. Have some jokes prepared--popular ones this year are likely to be, "Hey, did you hear Julius Caesar's in our class?" or, "Hey, I just saw a piece of graffiti saying `Napoleon Bonaparte '84.'" Don't bother memorizing your SAT score; just tell anyone rude enough to ask that you got straight 800s. That'll show 'em.

Sociologists can cackle all they want, but they find it hard to describe the resulting community when a Harvard class of bright, ambitious, largely overconfident but remarkably unstable achievers gathers in a historic setting to acclimatize themselves to the intangible but nonetheless real mystique of the University. To quote one woman who reflected on her Freshman Week last autumn: "How can they expect me to be honest, when everyone is so incredible?" Remember: chances are you're every bit as incredible as anyone else here, but don't let that assumption develop into overweening arrogance. The best approach is to play the game without sacrificing substance for style. It's probably healthy to dip into the fray, rather than pretend to rise well above it by hanging out with those people you knew before you came here.

Yes, you will make other friends in your four years in Cambridge, and no, it's not worth it to push unwanted friendships. Try to sow the seeds for a few close relationships, but don't declare yourself a social misfit if you don't fall in love immediately. Don't kid yourself that you have to soak up the week for its intrinsic significance; if you're bored of something, walk away--except the required stuff. Relax, test the waters, acquire a taste for coffee and sherry.

Saturday, September 6

7 a.m. Dorms ready for occupancy, says the brochure; dorms open, says the connoisseur. Arrive ready for occupancy, invasion and incursion at 6:30 a.m. Grab the keys to the entryway and room. Run (repeat: run) upstairs, quickly unlock the door, and throw your belongings on the bed of the suite's only single. Be sure to be nonchalant, however, when your roommate ambles in ten minutes later. You'll be spending a lot of time with that person this year. Tell your first fib, something like, "Well, I got in at three in the morning and didn't have a place to stay, so I slept outside the dorm on my duffle bags, and that's why I got here at 6:30 a.m." The roommate will probably swallow your story, the week being young. Then again, you might want to bargain--offer your roommate the single for the first semester, in return for the single second semester. You know what they say about springtime....

9 a.m. Welcome lounge for parents at the Union, complete with coffee (an imaginative mixture of grit and Drano) and donuts (the hole being the best part). This is one scene to miss--you'll be eating at the Union quite a lot during the next few months, and there's still plenty of time to develop a "taste" for Harvard food.

10 a.m. to Noon Unpack and arrange belongings in your clothes in drawers and shut them before any parent can make a comment about what a nice collection of t-shirts you have or wonder aloud how their kid is ever going to live with a slob. Carefully extract the recommended summer reading from your suitcase and place the tomes on your shelf, affording them a prominent position. Now is the moment of truth: do you lie, telling your roommate you actually read all those books, or are you honest, saying you wouldn't be caught dead reading anything you don't absolutely have to? You decide.

Then, descend on Harvard Square to open a checking account. Try the NOW account option. Find out what NOW stands for, in the never ending pursuit of useless knowledge. Buy a frisbee and four Harvard t-shirts at the Coop. Purchase lunch at Elsies, (where John F. Kennedy '40 used to eat--you have a heritage to live up to now) and take it back to the steps of Widener, where you can eat your first meal at Harvard by flouting the rule that it's gauche to be reverent.

3-5 p.m. Reception for Third World parents and freshmen. Definitely worth a visit if you're a minority student; if not, put that frisbee to good use after you've donned your Harvard t-shirt.

4 p.m. Faculty discussion: "Liberal Education at Harvard." Delivered in Ishmaelian tones by Alan (tradition-minded master of Eliot House) Heimert. Don't try to impress everyone by asking a question. Check it out, but sit in the back just in case it doesn't suit your fancy. Don't bring notebooks--classes don't start for nine days.

5:30 p.m. Third World students picnic, followed later on by coffeehouse. By all means, attend if you're a minority student.

8-11 p.m. The Crimson Key sponsors a coffeehouse. The beer will be lukewarm, and coffee will probably not be served. Go for three minutes, and then head back for an ap-appointment with the professor: Professor James Beam. Ice and Dixie cups optional.

Sunday, September 7

10 a.m.-5 p.m. The Freshman's Dean's Office, at Morton Prince House, will be open. A good excuse to talk to Hank Moses, dean of Freshman. He's heavy into Outward Bound and orienteering, so read up in advance if you need a pretext for discussion. Go easy, though: Moses is a low-key fellow. Very Ivy League, very laid back. He wears cool penny loafers or topsiders. Ask for the brand name then go buy a pair.

10 a.m. Brunch for a mere two bucks at Hillel house. Hillel has the best brunches and deli dinners at the University.

10 a.m.-Noon, 1 p.m.-3 p.m. Assembly/Workshop for Third World students. A must, since representatives of all the established campus minority organizations will be there. Don't miss this meeting.

Noon Lunch with your folks, if they're still here. You got into Harvard, so you should have been smart enough to have them treat you to a meal at a good restaurant last night. So too, tonight. Have a reunion dinner with the 1600 freshmen and their parents at Locke-Ober's tonight; last night you saw them all at Anthony's Pier 4. Today at lunch is the time to inform your parents that their deadline for departure is right after dinner--otherwise, you'll lose 0.1 on your GPA, as you were told by some high authority. That way, you've played them for another fancy meal, and once they leave you don't have to feel guilty about their prowling Boston alone while you try to make friends. A case study in how to put your newfound Harvard education to work.

1-3 p.m. Required meeting of those freshman notified that they are eligible for advanced standing. This is one of those choices you have to make yourself, and the meeting will help confuse the issue by giving you all the right information. But you have to go; so don't let yourself be confused with the facts, just go with your gut. Then, start looking for the guts--whichever route you choose.

3:15-5 p.m. Opening exercises in Tercentenary theater. The last time you will all assemble in one place before Commencement, as each of the speakers will surely remind you. A real live opportunity to hear the pillars of the Harvard establishment expound on Harvard. Presidents Bok and Horner will welcome you to the company of not-yet-educated men and women. Dean Rosovsky will bring his dry and sometimes stinging wit along to give an address. (His address, by the way, is University Hall.)

Opening excercises are a nice touch for the parents, but the cognoscenti stay away. The bigwigs will spend a couple of hours trying to convince you they have nothing better to do than welcome and address you. Don't be fooled; they do. Besides, if you heard Guy Vander Jagt or Mo Udall give a keynote speech this summer, you've probably listened to enough rhetoric to last till 1984. When, as the intelligentsia secretly know, the world will end.

5:30-7 p.m. The freshman picnic at Radcliffe Yard. The brochure says this event is "informal." Actually, you have to go out and buy a tux or evening gown to dine on rubbery chicken. Actually, you don't. You may as well trek up Garden St. to absorb the atmosphere, lie on the grass, maybe meet a few new people. Avoid the food, though.

9 p.m. Required meeting with proctors for all freshmen. UPPERCASE in the brochure. You know what that means. Wanna eat this year? You need an I.D. card to do that, and this meeting is where they are meted out. Other things are meted out: what is illegal and where to go for official--but not necessarily authoritative--advice. If you lose your I.D., you can get a replacement at Holyoke Center, for a fee. Then you can once again hang out in libraries. Sure. Your proctor will also introduce you to everyone else in your entry. Proctors memorize the freshman yearbook so they recognize everybody's faces. They also write confidential reports on you at the end of the year. They are allotted a fund for "milk and cookies"--post-prohibition style. Although the drinking age in Massachusetts is 20, don't let it deter you.

After the meeting: Party. UPPERCASE.

Monday, September 8

8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Registration. This is it, and there's no way around it. Registration is a sort of personal odyssey, as you wend your way past hundreds of sweaty bodies to get to point A, only to be referred to point B, and you will finally wind up at point C, where they more often than not will send you back to A. At registration, you will get a course catalogue. You will also be able to get a Confi Guide, which you will need to select your courses intelligently. You will doubtless gape at the swirl of activity going on around you, and be weighed down by a barrage of materials. This is the Harvard Experience? you will ask. Just wait for sectioning next week.

1:30-3:30 p.m. Placement test in chemistry, the first of several weeding out processes that the University uses to separate the sheep from the goats. And after a summer when you assuredly forgot everything you ever learned in high school. Masochism, Cambridge style.

3:45-5:15 p.m. Placement test in mathematics. Required. Ugh. Quick, what's the quadratic formula?

8 p.m. Faculty discussion: "Was the American Revolution a Mistake?" with Bernard Bailyn, award-winning historian. Catch him while you can; he'll be on leave this year. Which will introduce you to another fact of life--sometimes the best professors aren't even here.

Tuesday, September 9

1 p.m. Wake up.

3:15-5 p.m. Reading test, required of all new students. Skip all adjectives and adverbs. Look at the last few pages for a summary--the answers are cleverly cloaked there. The biggest lesson this test can teach you is how to make sure to read introductions and conclusions, no matter what. If you don't do well, you will be referred to the Bureau of Study Counsel reading comprehension course, which will cost you. But if you do poorly, you might do well to take the minicourse. If you think you just had a bad day, don't sweat and don't bother signing up. If you've taken the Spanish, French or German placement test--Remember those? Remember the language requirement? --earlier in the day, you might merely be tired by the time you plough through the soporific reading.

8 p.m. Faculty discussion: "Volcanoes, Deep Sea Trenches, and Island Arcs." Raymond Siever, professor of Geology, will hold forth in Science Center B. So you wanted a diverse education? So you were rained upon by the capricious belches of Mt. St. Helen's?

9:30 p.m. Square dance, in the Union. Need you ask?

10 p.m.-4 a.m. Flip through the course catalogue, and see if you can find four courses that interest you. While you're doing this, consume large quantities of everything you can get your hands on--it's going to be a long four years.

Wednesday, September 10

9:30 a.m.-10:30 a.m. Core quantitative reasoning requirement meeting. UPPERCASE. The horror, the horror. No one really knows what'll be said in this meeting. No one wants to know. Grin and bear it.

11 a.m. Intramurals meeting in the Union. Freshman intramurals can be fun, but they can also be hopelessly disorganized and lacking any semblance of spirit. But it is one way to meet people.

1-2:45 p.m. More placement tests, in Italian, Latin, Hebrew, Greek and Russian. Thankfully, you can't take any more than one of them at once.

1-3 p.m. Open house at the Office of Career Services and Off-Campus Learning. A great resource, OCS-OCL is well worth the trek down Dunster St. Here you might consider options that never occurred to you, like foreign study, leaves of absence, and volunteer work experience. While it may be a bit early to contemplate these things seriously, if you get introduced to OCS-OCL early on you can keep them in the back of your mind.

10 a.m.-4 p.m. Physical examinations. Welcome to University "Health" Services. Pray that this is the last time you have to go there.

5 p.m. Faculty discussion: "Re-examining Thoreau's Premises," with Joel Porte. Come now, you didn't really read Walden over the summer, did you? Worth a look, even if you didn't. You'll want to go to Walden Pond at some point.

8 p.m. Faculty discussion: "Ethnic Marginality in American Literature," with newly-arrived chairman of the Afro-Am department, Nathan I. Huggins. If you only have the mettle for one of these sessions, this might be your best bet. Huggins steps right into the fire this year, and all eyes will be watching to see if he can quell wide-spread concern about Afro-Am. Science Center B.

9:30-11 p.m. Free movie in the Union. Spending a lot of time at the Union lately, eh? A night to party and relax.

Thursday, September 11

Okay, freshmen. Today's the day to take freshman trips! That's right, there's a bike trip, a trip to Crane's Beach, a trip to the Hancock Observatory, and a trip to the Museum of Fine Arts (the last is the best bet). You'll probably have more fun if you go on your own, though.

4 p.m. Freshman seminar applications due. The trick to these is to play up your diversity on the forms without playing up yourself. The professors who teach the seminars are not easily impressed by high school types, and the more self-effacing on the application the better. And, if you don't get into one, don't let it shatter your self-esteem; chances are the decisions were made in haste or randomly. If you do get in, of course, brag a lot and feel smug that you've beat out all those other people you thought were your superiors this week.

8 p.m. etc. Party. Try not to think about classes, which start in a few days.

Friday, September 12

10 a.m.-Noon Loeb Drama Center introductory meeting. A beautiful facility, the Loeb is worth a visit just to gawk at eclectic theater types.

11 a.m.-5 p.m. Meetings for freshmen with their academic advisers to discuss course placement. The Day approaches.

1-5 p.m. Advising on science courses and placement. Pre-meds take note. You have nothing to lose but your integrity, soul, teeth, extracurricular life, not to mention sleep. Before you enroll in a science course here, make sure you weigh the options carefully.

5:30 p.m. Reception and dinner for freshman women with women from the University community. There won't be many tenured women professors at this fest, because there are only a handful of tenured women here. Which is a pity.

8:30 p.m.-Midnight The freshman mixer. Indeed. Take 1600 raw freshmen, add one rock band of questionable talent, watery punch, shake them all around in smoky Memorial Hall, and you have three and a half hours of bona fide trauma, a/k/a the mixer. lowercase. You may as well sashay your way through Mem Hall for a few minutes, just so you can have something to talk about with every Harvard student, Freshman and upperclassman alike: how bad the mixer is. Also, there will be many women from other schools, presumably bused in to offset the sex ratio. But the pursuit of drunkenness tonight will prove far more fruitful than the pursuit of happiness. Head downtown and explore some less rarified haunts.

Saturday, September 13

More freshman trips--to the Boston Harbor Islands, along the Freedom Trail, a geology field trip, and an architectural tour. Sleep off the hangover, and skip the trips.

4-6 p.m. You are most cordially invited to tea with Presidents Bok and Horner--half of you, anyway. Push your way through the throngs to get a close-up look at your heroes. They will not remember your face, or your name; they may preside over Harvard and Radcliffe, but they are partially human. Skippable, unless you fear that you may never get that close to them again. Your fears may be justified. The Fogg is a nice place to stroll and muse, too. The rest of you will have to wait with baited breath till tomorrow.

8 p.m. "Love Story," projected at the Science Center. You can engage in some projections of your own: maybe you too will one day enjoy a romp through the snow in front of Emerson Hall. At the very least, you will come close to being killed by a maniacal Boston driver a few times in your college career. It's a good thing Erich Segal teaches at Yale; he's just one more object for derision.

And so ends the journey of a born-again Harvard freshman known as Freshman Week '80. You will emerge somewhat wounded, somewhat perplexed, and somewhat strengthened. No matter how harshly your illusions are shattered, however, you will emerge. And you will have reached the end of the beginning. Lots of luck