<p>Should I buy a car? </p>
<p>1) what is the cheapest parking fee?
2) is traffic so bad that a car is no faster than a pair of boots?</p>
<p>i'm a freshman too, but i heard we all just take the subway. although i'm wondering if i should get a MA driver's license...</p>
<p>You don't need a car in general, and you definitely don't need a car to get around campus. Public transportation in Boston is good enough for students, and parking is generally pretty expensive and pretty scarce. </p>
<p>It looks like a student parking permit at Harvard is $1585 this year.</p>
<p>$1585 just to park a piece of mobile metal for 8 months?! Well, it's Boston, so...</p>
<p>It's DEFINITELY not worth it to have a car- almost no students do, and you can get around the city easily without one. It's particularly not worth it to buy one just for college.</p>
<p>Usually, people at urban colleges don't need cars- it's people at colleges in the suburbs or the country that need them.</p>
<p>Ah yeah you also need licensing fees etc in Cambridge....don't do it, horrendously expensive.</p>
<p>Take the T. When I used to live in Cambridge I rarely went to places by car, except to the suburbs for say violin etc...</p>
<p>A car would be an unneccessary and expensive burden.</p>
<p>What if you plan on going outside the Boston or even Massachusetts area? Not like seldomly but quite often, perhaps twice a week or such.</p>
<p>ask the girlfriend or boyfriend to buy the car</p>
<p>externals- I don't know anyone that does this. Out of curiosity, why would you want to go outside the Boston area twice a week?</p>
<p>I like to travel alot..</p>
<p>I can't imagine any Harvard student who'd have time to travel outside Massachusetts twice a week, unless they were traveling with a sports team or something. Many different clubs, from a cappella groups to the Outing Club, will get you out of town a few times a semester.</p>
<p>Seriously, the only way it would be worth it to have your own car would be if you are filthy rich and you don't mind spending thousands of dollars a year to park it at a private garage in the Square. Ordinary undergrads (not disabled, etc.) who pay for campus parking will get spots in the Business School lot, which is a good mile away from most of the dorms.</p>
<p>Do people really study that much in Harvard? On my visit, there were so many kids just doing NOTHING.. They seemed like airheads.. I don't know...</p>
<p>
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Do people really study that much in Harvard? On my visit, there were so many kids just doing NOTHING.. They seemed like airheads.. I don't know...
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</p>
<p>First of all, if you're asking students to tell you about their school, it would help if you didn't insult them first.</p>
<p>Secondly, all Harvard students are different. Many study really hard, many don't- it's impossible to give an answer to that question.</p>
<p>And most importantly, the ones that you see on a visit are obviously not studying- they're playing frisbee in the yard or eating in the cafe or whatever. At any given time a large portion of the students are busy working or studying, but they're in their rooms and you wouldn't see them on a visit. And the people that are chilling and doing nothing are often extremely diligent and hardworking- just because they're eating lunch with their friends or playing frisbee or whatever doesn't mean you can judge them.</p>
<p>Almost no one at Harvard spends ALL their time working, and something I love about the campus is how flexible and laid back the atmosphere is. But the classes are almost all academically rigorous and challenging- it takes a lot of work to get by in almost any concentration (obviously there are a few slackers, like there are in any college). Harvard students are generally very normal- they like to relax, they have a good amount of free time, they date, drink, socialize and work.</p>
<p>What did you expect?</p>
<p>Admiral, I don't think you could classify most of them as "normal," I'd say the vast majority are very ABNORMAL. 25% of the students there scored over a 1580 on the SATs. Lol...one of the few schools where my 2400 wouldn't put me in the 99th percentile. That's why it's where I want to go :)</p>
<p>I meant normal in a social context. Just because a lot of students scored well on the SAT doesn't mean it's a school full of mutants that do nothing but study. Too often people like externals look at the statistics and think that the school must be some sort of haven for supergeniuses, and then are surprised when they arrive that it looks like a normal college.</p>
<p>Get into a Final Club (The Fly, maybe others) and get a "free" parking spot right by the river houses!</p>
<p>Except by "free" I mean thousands of dollars a year.</p>
<p>By no means did I intend to insult anyone, it is just that, I did think it would be a lot more like one of those schools... I come from a place where there is not much studying and a lot more play. Sometimes I get frustrated as even my teachers do not even teach.</p>
<p>Externals- I think you have the impression that if students like to relax or to chill, they're lazy and don't take work seriously. Nothing could be farther from the truth- just because you see some students messing around doesn't meant they don't work hard. Most importantly, it certainly doesn't meant the professors don't take their classes seriously.</p>
<p>The perception that Harvard students are lazy is very misguided, but so is the idea that because you see some students not working, they must not be academically serious.</p>
<p>What % of freshman do you think that owns a car on campus? I’m thinking about getting a car in my junior/senior year, because I will need the car after graudaiton anyways, so why not have the car and get familiar with it before graduation?</p>