Make Your House Home

To the Class of 2009:

Welcome to the first day of the rest of your (Harvard) lives. I can tell you, from experience, that the next three years are going to be great.

Congratulations are in order for those of you who got into Mather (full disclosure: I live there). You won the housing lottery. If you didn’t get in, though, don’t worry too much. Legend has it that 90 percent of graduating seniors think their house is the best one. Sure that’s “statistically impossible,” but it’s wonderfully indicative of the kind of adventure you’re about to begin.

Although I am a senior who will have joined the company of educated men and women before the next move-in day, I’d like to use this space–on this, the most exciting day of the year–to provide you with a brief to do list (and a not to do list) to get the most mileage out of the House system.

To Do:

1. Spend many of your waking hours in the dining hall. While unmatched in beauty, Annenberg is eclipsed by the multi-purpose functionality of the House dining hall. A provider of food, a homework station, a meeting forum, a social space–it is a hub of activity at all hours of the day and night. The dining hall is a place in which somewhat stale bagels are the fare du jour, procrastination thrives, and papers eventually get written (though it might not often happen until the HUDS staff starts prepping breakfast). Strong community is built by the mere existence of a central location through which housemates’ paths constantly cross.

2. Befriend the people around you. Students are at the epicenter of the House community, but they are not its only shapers. Your House masters have the potential to be a pair of surrogate parents; resident tutors give incredible advice and support; and the dining hall staff is generous and friendly. A Mather supervisor for HUDS told me that she keeps an eye on the serving area to make sure that students are eating enough or eating at all. If House masters or tutors have children, play with them. It only takes the sight of a tricycle or a bicycle child seat in the courtyard to make a dorm feel homey¬even when the dorm is made of concrete.

3. Make your House better for future generations. House Committees are the backbone of residential life, but it takes a village to continue House traditions. A few weeks ago, my roommate met a Matherite who graduated from Harvard 30 years ago. He asked off-handedly whether the House still put out milk and cookies on Sunday night to round out the weekend. In fact, we do. Over the years, generations of students experience parallel House lives. There is something comforting about that kind of continuity in an ancient college that will celebrate its 400th birthday during my 30th reunion. It’s a feeling of being part of something bigger. Put in the effort to help plan happy hour, plant flowers in your courtyard, or start a foosball league. The onus falls upon the current generation of students to sustain old traditions and start new ones.

Not To Do:

1. Don’t hole up in your bedroom. Sleep is for the weak, and work can wait another day. The joy of a House stems from the fact that there is a community at your fingertips that is infinitely more valuable than a response paper. It’s not that solitude and self-reflection isn’t important–alone time is valuable, especially at Harvard, where the pace of life is so fast that you barely have a chance to breathe. But it’s only for so long that you are within 30 yards of a House full of pretty incredible people, and, with only two-and-a-half months left to go until Commencement, I regret not taking advantage of their proximity.

2. Don’t limit socialization to your blockmates. Treat the House dining hall as if it were Annenberg during the first two weeks of college. Sit down with new people and introduce yourself straight up. The House is the great equalizer, and the importance of class years fades away as strong friendships and mentorships form.

3. On the other hand, don’t lose track of friends in other Houses. Close friends may be split up because of the randomization of housing assignments, but that is no excuse to be insular. Once you befriend your housemates, and your friends from freshman year do the same, your circle of friendship can expand exponentially. Visiting a friend in another House opens up a new world of social opportunity.

It is telling that when my classmates and I graduate this June, we will celebrate first amidst the pomp and circumstance of a 30,000-person-strong ceremony. But then we will travel the blocks to our House courtyards, where our House masters will hand us our diplomas in an intimate ceremony. We will shake hands with a receiving line of teary-eyed tutors who have seen us grow from sophomores to seniors. The underclassmen who have stuck around for Commencement will stand on the sidelines, bearing witness as the most recent generation leaves with fond memories of the House and the new generation–your class–takes on the responsibility to shape and be shaped by the House. Welcome.

Hana R. Alberts ’06 is a history and science concentrator in Mather House. During her last two months at school, you can find her meal-whoring in the newly-renovated dining hall or cursing at the foosball table.