Good Degree, Better Food: Best Harvard Concentrations

As Advising Fortnight draws to a close, students and faculty alike vie for the attention of freshmen at various concentration events. Of course, the best way to to get college students to like you or to sign up for your stuff is to shower them with free things. So, for the overwhelmed freshmen trying to choose a concentration, Flyby has a foolproof way to narrow down your choices: It all comes down to food.

After all, if you’re going to spending the next three years mingling at concentration cocktail hours and senior thesis dinners, it’s important to know what kind of food you’re getting into. Here were some of the food highlights from Advising Fortnight.

South Asian Studies takes top prize for best concentration with some tasty samosas and chicken tikka at their advising event. If you’re like us at Flyby, then you can never pass up on good South Asian food and chai!

Music came in with a strong second place with their platters of mini sandwiches. (Quite fancy—they were even labeled with small toothpicks.) Bite sized desserts rounded out a worthwhile advising lunch.

Plenty of Thai food was going around at the Applied Math fair. A hoard of freshmen crowded Ticknor Lounge to eat some pad Thai and wide rice noodles. Rumor has it there was even enough for students to take some leftovers for later. Any excuse to skip more Berg meals is a good one, we were told.

Tagged as an Ice Cream “Social” (because “Social” Studies), the interdisciplinary concentration had plenty of flavors of Lizzy’s ice cream available. Students threw chocolate sauce, sprinkles, and cherries on their own sundaes. Flyby thinks that’s a pretty solid reward for committing to write a thesis.

The Economics department was prepared for a party with twenty boxes of pizza for their prospective students. Flyby was a little disappointed that we made the trek up to the third floor of Littauer only to discover cheese pizza. We were told that “toppings were coming later,” but it was unclear if the pepperoni ever showed up. We guess you don’t need to put in too much effort when you’re the largest concentration at Harvard.

We know that choosing among Harvard’s 49 concentrations is hard. But keep in mind, the quality of food at advising events will probably be the only thing you remember from Advising Fortnight, so why not make it worthwhile? And for all of the upperclassmen lamenting HUDS meals and worried about their job prospects… it’s not too late to switch concentrations.