Still Awake?

With stuffy Cantabrigian neighbors and an administration all too happy to serve in loco parentis, Harvard hardly seems like a rock-and-roll-all-night kinda place—even as the powers that be consider extending party hours, late nighters can hope for a 2 a.m. curfew at best. But as FM knows particularly well, looks can be deceiving: Harvard’s around-the-clock culture goes way beyond old fashioned keggers and study sessions. We figured Harvard students find plenty of worthier—and quirkier—occupations for their nighttime hours.

So we dispersed reporters to all corners of the square. Fueled by caffeine, they followed, hour by hour, those people whose eyes are open when most of us are buried under our duvets or mountains of homework. From an all-night van driver to the volunteers at a homeless shelter, from the cashier at CVS to peer counselors waiting by the phone, all our subjects had one thing in common: come morning, they were tired.