Harvard's Vast Resources Serve to Create a Diverse Body of Students

Through its glossy fliers and friendly phone calls, Harvard works very hard to convince you to spend your years and money at this school. By now, you have already been told many times that Harvard has excellent resources to make your college education extraordinary--the libraries, the labs, the Faculty. Depending on your academic interests, you may be looking forward to coming here to look through Widener's tremendous collections, to do research at the Medical School, to attend speeches and study groups at the Kennedy School or to take advantage of Harvard's excellent resources in other ways.

As you progress through your college years, however, you might find that the majority of these resources are not too exciting for you. Unless you're a science concentrator, you may not care too much about the research facilities housed in Mallinckrodt or Fairchild.

Similarly, unless you are interested in those areas, you might never go to visit the renowned professors at the Centre for European Studies or 2 Divinity Avenue.

Or worse yet, you or your friends may be very interested in talking to these professors but may find that they are not there for you. Students at Harvard at times voice the concern that their classes are too large and that they do not get to interact much with the excellent scholars that make up the departments. Or perhaps the volumes in the libraries or equipment in the labs are not as accessible or as exciting as they first seemed from the colorful brochures that Harvard sent you the summer before you arrived on campus.

As you come across these facilities and resources that Harvard is known for, however, you should always remember a less-obvious purpose that these facilities serve: to attract new students every year to study at this school. As pointed out by my House Master at Commencement this spring, Harvard's excellent resources act to draw in students from all over the world to make up a unique community of peers with whom you can live and study. He pointed out that we often learn as much, or even more, from outside of our classrooms than inside, as our interactions with our peers form an essential part of our college experience. Although you may not directly benefit from some of Harvard's resources, they nonetheless add to your college experience by drawing in students from various states and countries that you have the opportunity to share your next four years with.

So when you arrive on campus, appreciate all that Harvard has to offer and do not think that some of those resources have nothing to do with you. Even though you may not intend to concentrate in psychology, government, or economics, these departments over in William James Hall and Littauer Hall will impact your college experience more than you might expect. These departments, along with the other great things that Harvard has to offer, act to draw in fellow students that you will get to know and, in my case, become good friends and roommates with.

--Dawn Lee '01 is the online/technology chair of The Crimson.