Picking Your Poison

Selecting an extracurricular at Harvard is like choosing a porn magazine at a newsstand: They all look pretty darn good.

However, in both cases the ubiquitous promises of pleasure and satisfaction often conceal a substandard product. You must choose very carefully, and those shrieking monkeys stationed behind and on top of the tables at today's activities fair will be no help. As you make your way through the chaos, consider the following painful truths about Harvard's organizations:

While serving on the Undergraduate Council may look like an ideal way to give back to the campus, it is actually a highly efficient way to earn the absolute disrespect of everyone you meet. Join the council, spend four years discussing the lack of Faculty diversity and graduate to an illustrious career in the Rhode Island state legislature. Have fun.

A better way to pursue an interest in government is through the Institute of Politics (IOP). You won't actually be doing anything remotely productive, but you will get to shake hands with lots of famous people. You'll imagine that these dignitaries may someday offer you a job. They won't.

Or try Harvard's various political parties. Join the Harvard Democrats and learn to conceal evidence, exploit legal technicalities and enjoy a fine cigar. Watch out for rug burns. Those leaning to the right can take their place with the Republican Club. If you enjoyed Fred Thompson's performance as Bill Bilecki in the classic motion picture "Feds," help make sure that this fine performer and patriotic American gets his due. Help elect him president.

A conservative off-shoot of the Republican Club in the Radcliffe Women's Action Committee. Join these women as they fight to defend such great institutions as the Miss America pageant, Hooters and the Catholic Church.

For those lacking the fighting spirit demanded by the political arena, there are the soft and fluffy public service organizations that comprise the Philips Brooks House Association. Spend your college years feeding starving children; it'll look great on your application to Goldman Sachs.

For those who are less charitably inclined, there are a myriad of self-indulgent organizations to explore. If you miss the halcyon days of medieval times, you can help The Society for Creative Anachronism recreate them. For those with even more active imaginations there is the Harvard Investment Association. Pretend you are Gordon Gecko. Pretend you live on the Upper West Side. Prepare for 100-hour weeks punching numbers.

Then there's the enormous number of publications. In fact, the amount of paper wasted on campus is an environmental travesty. The worst offenders are the various political journals, such as Perspective and the Salient. These journals produce reams of partisan exposition at an ungodly rate--and no one reads any of it.

If you really, really, really love Jesse Jackson, you will enjoy Diversity & Distinction, the biannual magazine celebrating the beautiful colors of the ethnic rainbow. Peninsula, meanwhile, is a magazine in defense of everything decent and godly. If you don't want to write for Peninsula--and you don't--you might try to earn a place on their annual Enemies List.

On the lighter side of the spectrum is the Harvard Lampoon, a semi-secret Bow Street social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine. The Lampoon castle is a heaven for people who were frequently teased as children and have turned to humor as a defense mechanism.

Did you enjoy working on your high school newspaper? Well, you might consider re-living your glory days at the Harvard Independent, the campus' weekly newspaper. Last but not least, The Harvard Crimson deserves your consideration as an extracurricular option. Help us stalk campus celebrities and attack the defenseless. All you need is a word processor and a healthy dose of ill will.

Noah D. Oppenheim '00 is a social studies concentrator in Adams House. His column will appear bi-weekly this semester.