Dictionary of Harvardisms

2 a.m.: 1. The hour that on-campus parties, Felipe’s, and your liver all shut down. 2. The hour you’re likely to have your first drunk run-in with HUPD (see HUPD). 3. When the Kong, house grilles, and final clubs are still serving.



ABP: 1. Acronym for the fast-food bakery Au Bon Pain, where croissants, chess enthusiasts, Harvardians, and tourists abound just beyond the Yard’s wrought-iron gates. 2. Where Matt Damon looked longingly into Minnie Driver’s eyes in “Good Will Hunting.”



Adams House: 1. Faux-pretentious, overrated upper-class House located close to the Yard. 2. Adopted dining hall of many Quadlings and Wigglesworthians—those who can get past the armed butlers with megaphones and attack poodles, that is.



Ad Board: 1. The Administrative Board of Harvard College. It decides your fate if you screw up badly enough for anyone to take notice. 2. A verb: He was “ad-boarded” for getting really drunk and pushing his proctor out of the fifth-floor window (see Proctor).



Advocate: 1. The Harvard Advocate, a literary magazine that has been known to disseminate the cocaine-induced ramblings of the hipster upper crust. 2. Crumbling wood-frame structure behind Noch’s which may or may not still be standing by the time you graduate.



All-Nighter: 1. A last-resort tactic to complete a long paper (freshman year); usual method of completing assignments (junior year). 2. Why CVS stays open 24/7.



Allston: 1. The current home of Harvard’s athletic facilities and a future home of upper class houses (goodbye, Quad!) 2. Home of Blanchard’s, king of kegs (and painfully cheap gin). 3. An area (allegedly) infested with rats after Harvard dug a humongous hole and then abandoned it due to budget constraints.



The ’Berg: 1. Annenberg Hall, the cathedral-esque structure (complete with stained glass) that serves as the dining hall for all first-years. 2. Where food goes to die.



Blocking: 1. Often painful process in March during which you will have to select your seven closest friends. Have fun.



Boston: 1. Where you tell people you go to school. 2. The city you claimed made you choose Harvard over Yale. 3. Thirteen minutes from Harvard on the Red Line. 4. A place you will rarely have occasion to visit in your four years here.



Brain Break: 1. A late-night snack in the dining halls of Houses and the ’Berg (see the ’Berg). 2. Where to rediscover the brownies you didn’t eat at dinner. 3. Where Adams House sometimes stations its security guard at 10 p.m., lest a Quincyite try to grab a bite (see Adams House).



Cabot House: 1. Spacious Quad house featuring large suites and abundant singles. 2. Conveniently located next to an elementary school full of screaming kids at 8 a.m.



Cabot Library: 1. The purple-curtained science library, located in the Science Center. 2. A second home for anal pre-meds. 3. An interesting smell, thanks to its long history of all-night hours during reading period.

Cambridge Common: 1. Grassy knoll separating the Quad from the rest of civilization. Steer clear at night to avoid being mugged and/or stabbed. (Seriously.) 2. Bar on Mass. Ave. popular with Quadlings.



Cantabridgians: 1. Pretentious name given to the residents of Cambridge. 2. What Yalies call us.



Central Square: 1. One T stop down Mass. Ave. You’ll never find yourself there for unsketchy reasons.



Charlie’s: 1. Inexpensive barbershop on Mass. Ave., convenient for Quad residents. 2. Eliot St. burger joint famous for greasy burgers and nonsensical pricing ($5 for a double, $8 for a triple).



Comping: 1. Harvard-speak for the sometimes-competitive training process for joining a student group. 2. Still the only way to get on the staff of The Crimson, the Advocate, or the Lampoon.



Concentration: 1. What every other college in America calls a “major.” 2. What one loses in section while checking out attractive freshmen.



Coop: 1. Where tourists go to buy overpriced Harvard sweatshirts and key chains; where you will stand in line for hours at the beginning of each semester to buy overpriced textbooks. 2. Where you will never go once you realize eBay and Amazon are a hell of a lot cheaper. 3. Rhymes with “loop,” not “blow-pop.”



Co-op: 1. Mispronunciation of the Coop (see Coop). 2. Harvard alternative accommodations for those who find the housing system “restrictive,” complete with naked cooking, rampant drug use, and those who swing both ways.



Core: 1. Seven required courses that allegedly taught your elders “approaches to knowledge” through samurai and dinosaurs. 2. What won’t exist by the time you graduate (but you might not notice the difference).



Cornell: 1. An inferior school somewhere way west of Cambridge. 2. The one hockey game of the year you shouldn’t miss.



The Harvard Crimson: 1. The only thing on campus worth reading. 2. Cambridge’s only breakfast table daily, founded in 1873. 3. The name of almost every athletic team on campus, except for women’s crew and rugby (see Radcliffe).



Crimson Key: 1. Over-enthusiastic cult of students who organize Opening Days. 2. A group that gives campus tours to wide-eyed visitors, but not prospective students (after the Admissions Office gave them the boot).



Currier House: 1. Ugly house in the Quad whose dining hall resembles that of a nursing home. 2. Ugly house in the Quad with plenty of party space and plenty of parties to fill them. 3. Ugly house in the Quad.



DHAs: 1. Department of Harvard Athletics. 2. Acronym present on athletes’ sweatpants and sweatshirts: “‘Deciphering the Glyphs’ was chock full of DHAs.”



DeWolfe: 1. Conveniently located overflow housing for students in various River Houses. Comes complete with MTV, dishwasher, refrigerator, bathtub, and bay windows. 2. You and everyone else will subsidize these luxury condominiums by suffering in cockroach-infested, cramped doubles when you’re sophomores.



Domna: 1. Ruthless (and legendary) Annenberg card swiper who left Harvard after nearly 22 years this past summer. 2. Name that still makes upperclassmen quake in their boots (especially those who forgot their swipe cards frequently).



Dormcest: 1. Act of hooking up with a student living in close proximity, usually in the same dorm or entryway (see Hookup). 2. The source of most Sunday brunch gossip.



Dudley House: 1. The “House” for the small percentage of students who live off-campus. 2. Overseer of the Co-op (not to be confused with the bookstore; see Co-op).



Dunster House: 1. Also known as “Dumpster House,” but home to a swanky renovated dining hall. 2. The building shown on every postcard that you will send home.



Ec 10: 1. Introduction to capitalism taught by textbook tycoon and Feldstein heir N. Gregory “Greg” Mankiw and a legion of teaching fellows. Usually the most popular (or at least most taken) class at Harvard. 2. If you’d prefer to not offend your liberal sensibilities, take Social Analysis 72.



Eliot House: 1. Where Unabomber Theodore J. Kaczynski ’62 spent his formative years. 2. Home of the Fête, the best formal at Harvard. 3. Its clock tower has probably had a better movie career than Matt Damon.



Expos: 1. Writing class required of all first-years. 2. A class that allows you the opportunity to beg for mercy in a cover letter, turned in with every paper.



Extension: 1. How to prolong writer’s block. 2. Harvard school attended by Hilary Duff.



Facebook: 1. Invented by Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg (formerly of the Class of 2006). 2. You should definitely know what this is by now.



Felipe’s: 1. Harvard Square’s most popular late-night answer to Mexican cuisine. 2. The Spanish word for “grease pit.”



Fenway Park: 1. Home field of the World Champion Boston Red Sox, perennial rivals of the New York Yankees. Go now—and leave your Yankees cap at home.



Final Clubs: 1. Eight endowed all-male clubs, housed in their own multi-million dollar mansions. 2. The center of some students’ social lives (mostly female first-years’), they are viewed disapprovingly by College administrators and women’s groups alike. 3. Bastions of socioeconomic elitism. 4. Generally overrated.



Finale: 1. A dessert-and-coffee hotspot on Dunster Street. 2. The place to spot your friends on awkward first dates, or partake in a lonely (and pricey) molten chocolate cake.



First-Year: 1. What you will be in September. 2. Gender-neutral term for “freshman.”



FM: 1. Fifteen Minutes, The Harvard Crimson’s award-winning weekend magazine. 2. Where to keep tabs on Harvard culture and see photos of your friends making out at parties.



Formal: 1. What you called a prom in high school. 2. House dances you’ll be attending in the spring (or the fall, if you get asked by that cute sophomore in section!) 3. Also known collectively as “The Balls.”



Gen Ed: 1. Supposedly a revolutionary and improved implementation of what are basically distribution requirements. 2. Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss...



Grade Inflation: 1. The supposed across-the-board raising of grades to undeserved levels by Harvard professors. 2. The sworn enemy of Prof. Harvey “C-” Mansfield ’53. 3. Hard to find, like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.



Grill Order: 1. What to ask for at Annenberg when country-fried steak simply won’t do (see the ’Berg).



Harvard Student Agencies (HSA): 1. A student-run organization that offers laundry, microfridges (see Microfridge) and other, mostly useless, student services. 2. Monopoly.



Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS): 1. Make friends with them early—you’ll be at their mercy for the next four years. 2. A motley crew of dining hall workers who are generally very friendly.



Harvard University Police Department (HUPD): 1. Rhymes with “cup tea.” 2. They’ll keep you safe, but make sure that certain “aroma” doesn’t leak from your room. They will find it.



H-Bomb: 1. What you “drop” when revealing to others that you attend Harvard University. Usage: “Last night was our second date and I dropped the H-Bomb. Then she dumped me.” 2. Harvard’s over-hyped, over-exposed porn magazine.



Harvard-Yale: (see The Game.)



Harvard-Yale Race: 1. The oldest intercollegiate sporting event in the country. 2. Multi-mile crew race held annually on the Thames river in New London, Conn., in which the ever-dominant Harvard crew embarrasses its Eli counterparts.



Head of the Charles: 1. Weekend in October devoted to a massive crew race. 2. When college and prep-school students descend on Cambridge to get drunk. 3. When your roommates will invite total strangers to drink, party, and pass out in your room. 4. A good weekend (October 17-18 this year) to skip town.



Hemenway: 1. A gym near the Science Center and the Law School. 2. Where students go to fight hyper 2Ls for elliptical access. Avoid it around dinner time. 3. Why you should go the MAC (see the MAC).



Hilles Library: 1. Former home of the Quad Library, a sterile, brightly-lit study space that used to have very few books, and now has none. 2. What’s first to go when Harvard faces a budget crisis.



Hookup: 1. A blanket term for a variety of sex acts, often devoid of emotional attachment, usually following a boozed-up grind in a sweat pit of a party. Have fun with these!



Independent (“The Indy”): 1. The (allegedly) weekly publication to read if you get uncomfortably excited about old news.



Interhouse Restrictions: 1. Rules that are supposed to prevent you from eating in many house dining halls. 2. What you avoid when you sneak through the back door of Adams Dining Hall.



Institute of Politics (IOP): 1. Hangout of would-be future presidents; some will actually be president one day.



Intramural crew: 1. The sport of participants who wake up when everyone else is going to sleep. 2. Legitimate excuse for making a general mockery of your senior spring coursework (see Extension).



Kirkland House: 1. Small house that hosts the annual Incest Fest.



The Kong: 1. The Hong Kong restaurant on Mass. Ave. Heaven for those who love bar fights and MSG. 2. The source of that pain in your stomach the morning after the night you can’t remember (See Scorpion Bowl.)



Lamont Library: 1. The most social place to study, Lamont offers comfy chairs and textbooks 24/5 on reserve for all those readings you missed. Too bad no studying will ever occur here. 2. Home of Lamont Cafe, which is almost like a student center, but not really.



Lampoon: 1. A semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine. 2. Gang of emaciated white males who amuse themselves writing penis jokes and starting fires inside their castle. 3. Campus virgin support center.



Leverett House: 1. Home to the famous 80s dance. 2. The only house where students have to cross the street to get to their own dining hall. 3. The mascot is a bunny. C’mon, a bunny?



Longwood: 1. Boston neighborhood home to Harvard Medical School and the Museum of Fine Arts. 2. Where swine flu infiltrated Harvard; the Dental School will never be the same. 3. A half-hour’s ride away on the free M2 bus. 4. What you will curse when you realize the one book you really need is at Countway Library.



Lowell House: 1. Lacking in views and space, Lowell House residents pay a severe price for that quaint “Harvard” look. 2. They have some important bells, or something.



The MAC: 1. The Malkin Athletic Center, a spacious gym near the River Houses that serves as a second home for many campus workout junkies.



Mass. Hall: 1. Yard building home to the offices of the University President and other central administration bureaucrats, and a few unlucky freshmen. Prepare yourself for quiet evenings alone.



Mather House: 1. The riot-proof monstrosity designed by a prison architect, housing a delusionally-spirited student population. They wear head-bands. 2. The box Dunster came in.



Microfridge: 1. Refrigerator-microwave combo rented out by HSA to sucker first-years who have no hope of either keeping their food cold or heating anything up within three hours. 2. It’s sometimes cheaper to purchase one than to rent from HSA.



MIT: 1. Vocational-technical school a mile down Mass. Ave. 2. Where you can enroll in trade school courses (e.g., accounting for civil engineers, organometallic chemistry, etc.) that Harvard doesn’t offer. 3. Where you go if you want to join ROTC, but don’t tell any campus uber-liberals. Do tell The Salient (see The Salient).



Noch’s: 1. Pinocchio’s, a great place for a midnight slice of pizza and cramped dining. 2. Rhymes with “blokes,” not “box.”



Office hours: 1. The chance to interact with famous professors that you will never take advantage of but should. 2. Your TF will occasionally hold these as well, allowing your peers to kiss up for better grades.



Opening Days: 1. The first few days you’re on campus, when you’ll meet hundreds of your new classmates and promptly forget their names as soon as classes begin. 2. Generally known as “Camp Harvard.” Don’t be fooled: Harvard is not this fun. 3. Lots of ice cream, lots of stern warnings, lots more ice cream.



PAF: 1. Peer Advising Fellow. 2. A socially conscious upperclassman who donates his or her time to hosting weekly study breaks and offering tame advice to first-years. 3. Probably a better source of academic advice than your official advisor (see Advising).



Pforzheimer House: 1. A nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to walk there. 2. Home to the Bell Tower and other good party spots that you will drunkenly make your way to and from during freshman year.



Pre-Med: 1. A subspecies of Harvard student known for aggressive, competitive behavior. 2. A frequenter of Cabot Library who goes into fits when organic chemistry notes are misplaced. 3. You will never see these students out at a party.



Proctor: 1. Friendly graduate student who dispenses milk, cookies, and advice to first-years during the week. 2. Unfriendly graduate student who combats personal sexual frustration by terrorizing freshman parties during weekends.



Punch: 1. Process by which sophomores and juniors are selected by final clubs (see Final Club). 2. The drink served at final clubs to unsuspecting freshmen. 3. A delicious fruity drink served at other times.



Qdoba: 1. Chipotle’s red-headed step child. 2. Pronounced like there’s a hyphen: Q-doba.



Quadded: 1. The fate of some unlucky first-years in March, sent across campus for the next three years. 2. The reason people use Room 13. 3. Get a bike, get a drink.



The Queen’s Head: 1. Short for The Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub, the surprisingly not-awful drinking hole under Annenberg complete with three-dollar draughts, tasty snacks, and a lot of old Harvardian stuff on the wall that no one, least of all the staff, really understands.



Quincy House: 1. Nicknamed “The People’s House” because of its (formerly) open access dining hall. 2. Convenient location, loud parties, hideous architecture. 3. Great late-night grille. 4. Home of the pimpest Masters’ Residence ever.



Radcliffe: 1. The remnants of a former women’s college in Cambridge, it now claims just a few women’s sports teams—referred to as the “Black and White,” not the

“Crimson”—and an “Institute for Advanced Study” to its name.



Reading Period: 1. Amount of time you have to read a semester’s worth of text and write four 30-page papers. 2. Best time of the year to party and sleep in, unless you have introductory language courses, which continue to meet.



Republican: 1. Rare political species targeted for extinction by the dominant, “open-minded” liberal populace which rules the Yard roost. Watch them as they graze.



Residential Tutors: 1. “Proctors” for upper class students (see Proctor). 2. Graduate students who get free food and housing under the guise of being “upperclass resources” (and often they are).



Salient: 1. Ultraconservative fortnightly (their word!) publication, descended ideologically from the people who prosecuted Galileo.



Sanders: 1. Short for Sanders Theatre, the large space tucked behind Annenberg. 2. Where you will occasionally attend Ec 10 lectures, speeches, and concerts. And nap. 3. Where a capella groups subject you to three-hour-plus concerts. Anyone, anyone?



Scorpion Bowl: 1. Trademark Kong drink. 2. The reason you wake up sprawled topless on the Matthews steps with “BONER CITY” Sharpied on your back. 3. It always seems like a good idea at the time.



Sections: 1. Weekly meeting with graduate students of varying teaching abilities and intelligence (see TF). 2. Meant to complement courses taught by big-name professors too busy to teach the important details that will appear on the final.



Seneca: 1. A final club. 2. No, wait, not a final club. 3. An all-female social organization that is definitely not by any stretch of the imagination a final club, so don’t call us a final club, you chauvinist pig. 4. Also, they have a building. But there are no parties there­—it isn’t a final club, you know!



Sex: 1. Something you will have a lot of at Harvard, with very attractive people. For real, I swear. 2. Not a determinant of scientific intelligence. 3. Intercourse (only at Harvard is this #3).



Sexile: 1. The state of being temporarily kicked out of your own room while your roommate engages in sex acts with his or her (in)significant other.



Shopping Period: 1. The first week of each semester, during which you can sample a variety of classes, parties, and mattresses.



Shuttle: 1. A bus to and from the Quad and Mather. 2. The vehicle you will chase and miss at 3:44 a.m. even though it’s supposed to leave at 3:45a.m. 3. No longer provides late-night service to the Quad. Wait, it still does. Does it?



Spring: 1. Traditionally March, April, and May. 2. Doesn’t exist at Harvard, where temperatures jump directly from “Inside the Arctic Circle” to “Inside Of Your Mouth.”



TF: 1. Teaching fellow. 2. Person in control of your academic fate.



UHS: 1. University Health Services. 2. Not a good place to go when you’re healthy, some say. 3. Not a good place to go when you’re sick, others say. 4. Will most definitely ask you if you’re pregnant. Or drunk. Or both. Especially if you’re a guy.



Undergraduate Council (UC): 1. Self-important but incompetent band of campus politicos whose Sunday-night meetings provide comic relief in the pages of the Monday-morning Crimson. 2. The only readers of The Crimson’s UC coverage.



Upstairs on the Square: 1. Super swanky Harvard Square restaurant, sure to impress your lady on a date.



Vanserg: 1. Classroom building home to most Japanese, Chinese, and Korean classes, and some Ec 10 sections, if you’re unlucky. 2. Farther than the Quad.



Walk of Shame: 1. The infamous return to your dorm after a passionate night in some guy’s Mather single, stomach heavy with drink and regret, and, if you’re unlucky, a newly fertilized egg. 2. Particularly hilarious for seniors leaving the Yard in the wee hours of Sunday morning.



Widener Library: 1. Titanic library built in memory of a Titanic drowning victim. 2. Home to the stacks, where students go to pour over books. Yup, nothing but readin’ in these stacks.



Winthrop House: 1. Inhabited by generations of Kennedys. 2. A breach in the space-time continuum where bedrooms can actually be smaller than Harvard-issued beds.



The Women’s Center: 1. The College’s home to resources for people of all genders. 2. Even money says the Salient hates pretty much every part of the above sentence.



Yale: 1. School spirit? Check! Deep-seated inferiority complex? Of course not! Who told you that? BOOLAH-BOOLAH DANNY BOY!



Z: 1. Name of the list of students required by Admissions to defer for a year—not quite good enough for this year’s class, but just great for the next one. Made up overwhelmingly of legacies.

For more information on the ins and outs of Harvard life, visit the My First Year homepage.