Culture Rock, Culture Sock, Culture Lock...

I stepped out of the swinging door from the Northwest terminal and headed down the stairs to baggage claim, tiredly listening to the heavy Boston accents of the people in front of me. When I finally claimed my bags and dragged them outside, I felt a strong breeze and slightly humid air on my skin.

A taxi driver in a battered vehicle with a Bruegger's Bagel bag in the front hailed me and began driving me at breakneck speed to Somerville, cursing at the traffic in the tunnel and stopping reluctantly to pay the toll.

At the time, I was feeling exhaustion. I was feeling some relief at having actually arrived back in Boston after airline mix-ups. But what I was feeling most intensely was something I've learned to expect as part of my college experience.

Culture shock.

Yes, culture shock. I didn't grow up in Massachusetts, you see. I didn't go to pre-college school in the Northeast. My friends from high school, for the most part, didn't go to Vassar and Wellesley or Dartmouth. Before coming to Harvard, I had never even seen crew, much less understood the significance of the term "The Head of the Charles."

I still remember my sense of utter shock and bewilderment during my first few weeks here. I see it in the pictures taken my first few months here. I see it in my journal entries dated September and October, 1992. And I saw it the other day in hundreds of faces streaming out of Memorial Hall following summer school registration.

Young, old, tired, almost all had a bewildered, vaguely confused look on their face saying, "What planet have I come to, and why do they have something called the Coop here?"

I don't know for sure if any of them are from Tennessee, my home state, but I bet a few are. I know I saw some other Southerners too, as well as Midwesterners, Southwesterners, Californians and Northwesterners. And, of course, there were those from foreign countries, most of whom were dealing with a language barrier much greater than the one I faced when I arrived here.

I've been there. Of course, no one was making fun of them as they did me my first few months here. I was the little Southern girl from the all-female school who had been brought up to be polite, respectful and subtle. I had never been in a class with more than 50 people. I was from a warm, tree and park-heavy, conservative, pretty Southern town and somebody had thrown me into a cold, highly urban, radical, rarefied Northern enclave. All my cultural referents were off.

I'm not quite sure how I ever adjusted. Maybe it was when I discovered Bruegger's Bagels. Maybe it was when I walked across the street without looking either way. Maybe it was when I called home and suddenly thought, "Gosh, Mom does have a-Southern accent after all."

But I did adjust. When I was taking the taxi ride to Logan in late May to go home for the summer, I stared mournfully out the window and thought how much I'd miss Harvard Yard on a nice afternoon, my friends with whom I discussed "Star Trek" plots at length, Out of Town News.

This is not a reaction unique to me, Far from it. Some will fall madly in love with Harvard and move heaven and earth to get in. Some will enjoy some parts of Harvard, such as the library system, and dislike others, such as the food. Some will run in the other direction as fast as possible and never look back.

But, like it or not, this place makes you a part of it whether you want it to or not. Maybe it's the Harvard aura. Or maybe it's the Herrell's ice cream.

Whatever, you'll spend the first few days at home trying to readjust to what you thought was your ingrained lifestyle.

In a few months the summer school process will be repeated on a different scale when the Class of 1997 arrives in the Yard for registration. Even if you've grown up in Boston, you won't be fully prepared. For the world you're in is called Harvard, where squirrels walk up to tourists, the statue of John Harvard sits serenely and even incessant rain can't dim a quiet air of satisfied superiority (although at times you may heartily wish it would.)

When does the culture shock end? It doesn't really. You'll go home and readjust, but if you come back the process starts over again.

After a while, though, you'll enjoy it. Instead of a feeling of confusion, you'll have a feeling of newness, of rediscovery. You'll look forward to the culture shock as a break from normal life, a time to notice things you normally take for granted or pass on by.

Just make sure not to look both ways before crossing the street.