MADE: Prefrosh Edition

While the age discrepancy is small, the gap between a prefrosh and a Harvard student is large. With their red Visitas folders and herd mentality, prefrosh spent the past weekend walking around Harvard Yard with wide eyes and dangling lanyards. It is easy to forget that that was us a few years ago. From living at home and taking AP tests to living in dorms and pulling all-nighters, how can a high school senior smoothly make the transition?

Silas M. Farley is an ordinary prefrosh: naive, confused, and still immersed in high school. Can he discover his inner Ivy Leaguer and be MADE into a Harvard student?

Stage 1: The Look

Ditch the red folder and backpack. Harvard students tend to look dignified with over-stuffed, stylish backpacks and messenger bags. Also, you have to start caring about your appearance.

Stage 2: Conversation

You're no longer allowed to talk about your SAT scores. No one cares that you got a 2400. Here, you will discuss more important things, namely the frozen yogurt flavor of the day and what color DAPA bottle you picked out.

Stage 3: Navigating the Yard

As a prefrosh, the thousands of tourists that fill the Yard every day may amaze you, but for Harvard students they are just another part of life. You'll get used to maneuvering through the crowds on your way to class and dodging the overzealous ones as they try to take your picture.

Stage 4: The People

It's cool to think of learning from professors who have won Nobel Prizes or socializing with children of famous world leaders, but when you are a Harvard student you'll play it cool when you see someone famous. Unless it's Lady Gaga.

Stage 5: The Workload

Remember five paragraph essays? Those no longer exist. It's time to start writing papers that are at least ten pages in length. Late night problem sets are your closest companions. Let's not even mention the senior thesis.

Stage 6: The Lingo

As a prefrosh, you might be confused by words like the SOCH, PAFs, and Ochios, but these are staples in the language of a Harvard student.

At the end of his training, Farley turned to us and said, "At Harvard we don't have majors, we have concentrations, and we don't have minors, we have secondary fields."

Our job was done. Farley had been MADE.