Questions for Current Harvard Undergrads

<p>I’m just starting to get geared up to research universities and figure out where I’ll been applying this coming fall, so I thought I’d ask the CC community a few of my questions to get a sense of what the undergrad experience is at Harvard.</p>

<p>I’ve heard that Harvard is more focused on graduate students than it is on undergraduates students. In all honesty, how accessible are professors? If you’re actively seeking out opportunities, is it possible to get involved with research as early as freshman year? Or are there a lot of restrictions based on standing (for instance, 'only for graduate students,’ or ‘only open to juniors or seniors’?)</p>

<p>Does Harvard take any strides to prepare students for prestigious scholarships (like Rhodes or Marshall)? I’ve heard that Harvard is a ‘Rhodes Scholar Machine’ but don’t know whether that implies Harvard helps them reach Rhodes Scholar status, of if that’s just the quality of student they attract in the first place. </p>

<p>Is funding widely available for different initiatives and/or ‘summer language study’-esque exploits? I know Yale funds all of their undergraduates to spend at least one summer abroad doing something academic (really encouraging them to travel)—does Harvard do anything similar? </p>

<p>I’d expect a university as large as Harvard to lend hand to a completely different social atmosphere than most high schools, but I was still wondering if you felt any sense of community (if not within particular classes, at least within living spaces)?</p>

<p>A related question: is it particularly competitive? I’m not a stranger to competitive academic atmospheres, but is it as extreme as some people make it out to be? Are people actively averse to collaborating with one another or is that just a rumour?</p>

<p>How is Boston? As an international I’ll unlikely have the opportunity to physically visit, so I thought I’d ask: How easy is it to get involved either with an NGO or part-time job? Do many students opt to get involved with things off-campus? What is it like having so many other colleges nearby? Is it fairly easy to meet students from other universities, or is Harvard fairly closed off? Are there many inter-collegiate conferences/opportunities for you to get to know other student bodies? </p>

<p>Can you name the top three things you like and dislike about Harvard in general?</p>

<p>Hopefully answers to these questions will be helpful to other prospective Harvard students. Thank you in advance!</p>

<p>Bump.</p>

<p>(You don’t have to tackle every question! If there’s even one of those that you feel comfortable answering, go ahead.)</p>

<p>Ok I’m going to take a stab at some of your questions, from the perspectives of a Humanities junior. </p>

<p>¶ Professors are accessible to undergraduates, for the most part. It will depend more on you going to office hours and you putting yourself out there; which people (myself included) do a lot less than they intended. As regards to research, I’m sorry, I don’t know. I do think professors pay attention to undergraduate students, especially since most (of my) classes are just undergraduates. I did have one weird set-up where a for-undergraduate class that didn’t have a subject equivalent for grads became majority graduates pursuing MAs or PhDs in the field. So what should have been a general, undergraduate introduction became a more discussion based class with way more previous knowledge. It would have raised the quality of the level of the class if these had been dedicated graduate students who did the reading and assignments (instead of relying on previous knowledge). Weird. </p>

<p>¶ Prestigious scholarships. Harvard (or is it the scholarship itself?) has a minimum GPA requirement for Marshall/Rhodes (3.7), so that’s all on you. Then you have to be endorsed by the school, and I’d imagine that’s competitive amongst the school population, but I would guess that a Harvard endorsement (you will get help from the House administrators) will put you well on the way. One plus of Harvard is the great post-graduate fellowships (especially for UK Oxbridge graduate schools) that are not instantly recognizable by name but are still great experiences. Anecdotally, Harvard has a pretty low Fulbright population for its size/quality of students. </p>

<p>¶ Funding is DEFINITELY available for summers & language study. There’s a Rockefeller scholarship . I actually got a summer language study course funded completely by the area’s funding budget leftovers (people who received funding then cancelled their plans). Harvard pressures its students to enroll in Harvard Summer School programs above other schools’ summer programs, and, I would say, above semester experiences. However, I would counsel you to think of language study beyond some weeks in the summer; study abroad over a semester or year opens you up more, is a more transformative experience, and I wish that culture could be inculcated more at Harvard.</p>

<p>¶ Community. Yeelch. There is and there isn’t, but really, it wouldn’t be one of Harvard’s best qualities. </p>

<p>¶ A (small) number of students I know have gotten involved in internships, volunteering, or working outside of Cambridge. I really don’t know how they have the time or energy. The best way to describe Harvard’s extra curricular culture is, well, rabid. These activities typically take up all the extra (and even social or personal) time of Harvard students. As far as students from other colleges, I don’t think people generally meet students of other colleges, but they might maintain previously existing friendships across Boston.</p>

<p>¶ Harvard is nowhere near as competitive as it might be portrayed. The studying/learning is more collaborative with problem set classes; most people get groups together for their empirical classes, though I’ve also studied for exams in groups (in a perfectly ethical way) for humanities classes. One of my favorite examples of students helping students was my freshman year. One other student and I were working on our calculus homework together, but this night we just weren’t getting anywhere. So about 2h30 am, we logged on to facebook to see who else was awake, and one of the students also online lived in the same dorm and was in the same class. He came down to teach us the material for over an hour, fully explaining it. That was absolutely wonderful. </p>

<p>Favorite things about Harvard:
-Intellectual enthusiasm of my fellow students. One of our favorite traditions is shopping week, when students can go to classes to check them out and see if it’s something they find appealing. Classes during shopping week are always super crowded. The number of students I know who just go to classes to check them out, thought they know they can’t enroll in that course, just warms my heart.<br>
-My classes. This might be because I have a rather loose concentration that lets me shape my own intellectual journey.
-The library system. It is awesome and I am always discovering new things to appreciate. I really hope this doesn’t change; President Faust’s approach to running the university is sometimes controversial and often against my own ideas about the role of the university in the world. Though might I just say that as a historian she is incredible; This Republic of Suffering is my favorite Civil War history ever.
Least favorite things about Harvard:

  • Sorority culture is big. Final clubs get a lot of ink, but I think it’s perfectly socially acceptable for a man to not be in a final club and to still have an active social life. Sororities are so big that I think it’s sometimes weird for those of us who aren’t in sororities. Definitely something I hadn’t expected before going to college.
  • Lack of female professors. In my sophomore year, I had seven professors and six of them were male. If we discount my math and biology classes, not that we should automatically expect male dominance in those fields, but just to underscore this point, I still had four male and one female professors in my humanities & social sciences classes. What’s up with that?!
  • The administrative bureaucracy. Probably a characteristic of the American university system, but it’s weird at Harvard. My experience, for what it’s worth, is that there is a preponderance of administrators but a cloud surrounding what they do and how they can help you. It’s frustrating and I suspect, though I hope not, that it keeps people from exploring some of the non-traditionally academic opportunities.</p>

<p>“The studying/learning is more collaborative with problem set classes; most people get groups together for their empirical classes, though I’ve also studied for exams in groups (in a perfectly ethical way) for humanities classes. One of my favorite examples of students helping students was my freshman year. One other student and I were working on our calculus homework together, but this night we just weren’t getting anywhere. So about 2h30 am, we logged on to facebook to see who else was awake, and one of the students also online lived in the same dorm and was in the same class. He came down to teach us the material for over an hour, fully explaining it. That was absolutely wonderful.”</p>

<p>^^^ On the surface, that would seem to be a violation of Harvard’s new Plagiarism Policy: [Harvard</a> Plagiarism Policy § Harvard Guide to Using Sources](<a href=“http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&pageid=icb.page355322]Harvard”>http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&pageid=icb.page355322)</p>

<p>“It is expected that all homework assignments, projects, lab reports, papers, theses, and examinations and any other work submitted for academic credit will be the student’s own. Students should always take great care to distinguish their own ideas and knowledge from information derived from sources. The term “sources” includes not only primary and secondary material published in print or online, but also information and opinions gained directly from other people. Quotations must be placed properly within quotation marks and must be cited fully. In addition, all paraphrased material must be acknowledged completely. Whenever ideas or facts are derived from a student’s reading and research or from a student’s own writings, the sources must be indicated (see also “Submission of the Same Work to More Than One Course” below.)”</p>

<p>“Students who, for whatever reason, submit work either not their own or without clear attribution to its sources will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including requirement to withdraw from the College. Students who have been found responsible for any violation of these standards will not be permitted to submit a Q evaluation of the course in which the infraction occurred.”</p>

<p>If the quoted passage is intended to apply to students helping each other complete math problem sets, Harvard is so asinine that no one with any other choice should enroll there. That is really over-the-top if there’s nothing else to moderate it. Like, does it apply to things that are not graded?</p>

<p>The amount of collaboration can vary among classes, but students should always be cautious.</p>

<p>[Syllabus</a> | Applied Math 121](<a href=“http://am121.seas.harvard.edu/syllabus/]Syllabus”>Syllabus | Applied Math 121 / Engineering Sciences 121)</p>

<p>Collaboration Policy
"All problem sets should be written up individually. All extreme programming assignments are to be completed in teams (usually teams of four).</p>

<p>For problem sets, students are strongly encouraged to collaborate in planning and thinking through solutions, but must write up their own solutions without checking over their written solution with another student. Do not pass solutions to problem sets nor accept them from another student. If you are ever in doubt, ask the course staff to clarify what is and isn’t appropriate."</p>