Kirkland House
It’s common for people at Harvard to laude the inclusiveness of their house and the environment it fosters, but Kirkland may be the place where this rings most true.“You are not only living in the house, but the house is your home,” said Giselle Chiprez ’25, one of Kirkland’s Housing Committee Co-Chairs.
House Community
For Chiprez, “a community is only as good as [the events] you’re participating in,” and luckily, Kirkland will never lack in that department. Every week, there’s always something to do, whether it’s run by the House Committee (fondly referred to as HoCo), the Faculty Deans, Resident Tutors, or even the committee in charge of the Choosening (we’ll get back to that later). On Monday there’s Boat Club, where students gather in the Senior Common Room to eat cookies made by one of the resident tutors. Thursday is community night, where the Faculty Deans provide specialty snacks around themes like dumplings(!) or potatoes(!!!!). Every other week, community night is topped off with a themed stein hosted by HoCo, where you can find delicious food and even better conversations. On Fridays, you may even have the chance to attend a party held by the infamous ten-man of Kirk, called the “Beef” (and which is effectively obligated to throw ragers for the house). The next day, Saturday, you can join the Brew Club, also run by a tutor, to brew beer, mead, and kombucha for consumption during steins and house events.
The crown jewel of the week, however, is Sunday. Biweekly, the Faculty Deans will open their home to the students for Faculty Open Houses, as a way to bond and also offer free food like sushi or Thai food. More famously, Sunday nights are also the night of the Choosening, where a spirited group of Kirkland students, dubbed the “Choosening Elders,” come together at midnight, pull a slip out of an animal cracker jar, and choose a theme of the week. All weeks are documented on @itsweekweek on Instagram, but some of my personal favorites include Box Week and Stick Week.
In addition to the week to week events, Kirkland holds a plethora of annual traditions for its student body. In the fall, you can look forward to Build-a-Boar, where HoCo rents out a stuffed animal stuffing machine to make your very own Kirk boar. In the winter, everyone looks forward to Secret Santa, a yearly tradition where Kirkland students are matched as Santa and Santee. Presents range from helicopter rides and chocolate-drizzled strip shows to door decorations and heartfelt letters. Santa matches are revealed at the Holiday Dinner, a fancy feast put on to celebrate the end of semester and prelude the Winter Formal. A Kirkland’s boar mascot head is paraded around the d-hall, senior roasts are told, and good cheer is gathered. The night is topped off with an afterparty in the Beef.
But what about the house?
However, a house is not only about its community. It’s also a house! The majority of Kirkland students live in the main building, a fairly standard connected building with a square inner courtyard. The remaining students live in the Annex, a detached building directly next to Kirkland, or the Prescotts, Kirkland’s overflow housing.
While Kirkland does hold a reputation for being somewhat worn-down and for housing an unusually high number of mice and cockroaches, some Kirkland students swear that things have gotten better. “We’ve improved, we have pest control,” said Subul Ahmad ’25, a Flyby editor and Kirkland resident. “They always conduct checks.” And, despite the lack of renovations, physical living situations should garner high hopes for sophomores. Housing is assigned through lottery, and sophomores can usually expect a n or n-1 room, with their very own en suite bathroom. You also run the chance of living in a former room of Kirkland’s many famous alumni, including Mark Zuckerberg and Truman Jones ’23, recent Super Bowl champion of the Chiefs.
Kirklanders may also enjoy many of the amenities that Kirkland offers. On a tour of the house, you’ll be able to discover an open art studio, a theater room, meditation space, game rooms, and many more gorgeous common spaces, like the outside balcony by the Junior Common Room where students gather to eat, study, or enjoy good weather. There’s also Hicks House, which is Kirkland’s House library and the second oldest building on campus. It was previously the residence of John Hick, a patriot in the revolution and member of the Boston Tea Party. Now, with many cozy study rooms, it is the perfect place to chill or ~lock in~.
One must also not miss the convenient location of Kirkland. It’s perfectly situated between the MAC and athletic centers (one rumored reason for Kirk’s strong athletic performance in IMs), it’s close to the Square (the Kirk to Noch’s pipeline is real and thriving), and even near one of the bus stops to the SEC (yay engineers!). Basically, it’s a great place to live if you’re a major late night snacker or habitually late to either class or practice (as most Harvard students are).
An Interview with the HoCo Chairs
There are many more little things to love about Kirkland, and here’s some comments from their very own HoCo Chairs, Giselle Chiprez ’25 and Nena King ’25.
What is some advice for incoming sophomores?
Nena: “I’d say, honestly, prepare yourself to meet everyone in the house. And to see familiar faces a lot more often than you do right now as a first year, which, obviously, but you’re gonna get to know a lot more people better than you do now.”
Giselle: “Make an effort to go out to the events that the house is hosting, because that will be the way that you get to familiarize yourself with a lot of people. And also, whatever house you get placed in, the house is only as good as you make it out to be. So if you’re not participating in anything, it’s not going to feel as fun. But there’s so many opportunities to do that. So as long as you’re keeping an eye out for stuff and participating in things when you have the chance to, Kirkland will be home.”
How are the IMs at Kirkland?
Giselle: “We’ve won Straus Cup the last two times.”
Nena: “Yeah, we’re going for the third!”
What makes Kirkland unique?
Giselle: “I think my biggest thing is just I’ve heard a lot that people will justify their house being the best house by saying they have a good community. And it’s usually a cop out answer to like, we have nothing else other than the community. But I think what makes Kirkland so amazing is the community. We just have such great house spirit and people participating in so many things. And just the fact that you know everybody all the time, there is no way to not say that Kirkland doesn’t have the best community at Harvard.”
Nena: “Yeah, people from the houses will agree with that. And also the fact that at our own dinners, literally every single day, there are people here that aren’t in Kirkland. There are tables of people who are not in Kirkland. Which, we welcome them to the community, but we know that they’re here for a reason. And apparently our food is better, which, I agree.”