There's No Place Like Home...

IN JUST TWO days, first-year housing forms are due. Anxious? Stressed out? Has your ideal rooming group collapsed into an in-fighting crowd of special interests? Are there prolonged arguments over the respective architectual merits of the Mather tower versus the Leverett high rises? Does some itinerent member of the group want to live in the Quad?

It may not seem possible, but in several weeks, after the initial shock of your rooming assignment sinks in, the atmosphere of competition and angst will subside.

And then it will then be time to pick a concentration, and the whole thing will start over again. This is what your first year at college is all about.

But that's not the way it used to be. Long ago in the days when the current seniors were living in the Yard (or the Union dorms), they actually got to pick the houses they wanted to live in most. There were no computers involved in the housing lottery. You didn't have to resign yourself to the randomness of binary digits. You had control. Sure, people still got randomly placed into the concrete jungle of Mather. Many others still got Quadded. But before the era of non-ordered choice, the housing lottery had a lot more certainty.

And, back in the days of choice, the houses had character--the way they used to when students had to be chosen to live there. Adams was for artists, Kirkland was for jocks, the Quad was for serious students. Everyone was happy.

Which, of course, is why the University wanted to change the system. Character is bad. Equality is good. Character doesn't equal equality. Computers offer equality.

RIGHT WHEN the Class of '93 was getting settled in our academic routine, our utopia was interrupted. Harvard won The Game, but as soon as we returned from New Haven, a lone first-year student went on a crusade. He canvassed door-to-door. He talked to every first-year student. Then he met with the proctors and the deans. He took his cause to the campus press.

What was the big issue? Minority hiring? The Date Rape Task Force? The American military presence in foreign countries? No, this guy was out to change the housing lottery system. His name was Jamie Harmon, and he headed The Committee Against Randomization. He was on a mission from God.

THEORETICALLY, after two years of non-ordered choice, the houses should have less character. We shouldn't be able to stereotype anymore.

Of course, as with many things at Harvard, what is good in theory is not good in practice (for example, the QRR--good in theory, horrible in practice). Some vestiges of tradition remain in all the houses. I will admit, however, that some changes have occurred.

Here is a brief supplement to the Guide to Houses that might provide more useful criteria when trying to pick a house this year.

Adams--A movie so bad it went out within the academic year. Need I say more?

Cabot--Destined to be randomized forever. Some things never change.

Currier--The familiar motto, "If you want us, we don't want you!" still holds true. Always claims to be the most fun Quad house. Who can argue?

Dunster--They roast a goat every spring and they kill ants every day. Not a house for the weak stomached.

Eliot--Silver Medal to alumni Paul E. Wylie '91. Best choice for future Olympians.

Kirkland--Had a Cabaret this year. And a musical. Couldn't be all that bad.

Leverett--Elevators. My advice--live on an even-numbered floor.

Lowell--Do you wake up to the sound of bells in the Yard? At Lowell, they only ring on Sunday.

Mather--So what if you can't use transister radios?

North--The house deepest in the suburbs.

Quincy--Besides the Adams overflow at meals...well, there's nothing worse than that, is there?

Winthrop--There's tire swing in the courtyard. Fun.

When it comes to making this important decision, you need to take everything into account. And then remember--it's not really up to you anyway.