<p>i was just reading a thread in the Columbia forums, <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/columbia-university/1041703-4-years-later-reflections-columbia-college-senior.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/columbia-university/1041703-4-years-later-reflections-columbia-college-senior.html</a> , and was introduced for the first time to the fierce debate over Columbia's community. there's copious discussion of Columbia in relation to the more welcoming environments found at Brown, Yale, Princeton, etc. in the thread; however, i noticed a conspicuous lack of talk regarding Harvard. thus, i was hoping that there could be a discussion here similar to that of the linked thread about Harvard's sense of community. i plan to apply to the big H next year, but this thread is born more out of a sense of curiosity than anything else</p>
<p>BUMP. BUMP. I’m also interested knowing this.</p>
<p>Bump.bump.</p>
<p>I go to MIT but a ton of my closest friends from high school go to Harvard and I’ve spent tons of time there; my impression was there’s an excellent sense of community but you need thick skin. It’s not a school that will hold your hand in that sense of “community” but if you can take the bad days and take everyone not being sweet as pie all the time, people are absolutely thrilled to be there and have a really solid bond with their roommates/entryway/house (Harvard’s like Hogwarts – there’s a house system that you get ‘sorted’ into that really facilitates community, social life and meeting students from all 3 years after freshman year). Compared to my friends from almost every other school including supposedly more “fun” schools, my Harvard friends are by far the happiest with the whole experience (and not just cause it’s ‘Harvard’ – you seem to forget about that a few weeks in).</p>
<p>It sounds like Harvard has a similar social community to Columbia then.</p>
<p>@couch124… “tons” of people from your high school went to Harvard?
Was your high school a feeder/boarding school?</p>
<p>[College</a> Struggles With Social Space | News | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/5/6/space-social-students-harvard/]College”>College Struggles With Social Space | News | The Harvard Crimson)
[At</a> Harvard, Social Space Woes Have a Long Past | News | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/5/9/student-center-space-students/]At”>At Harvard, Social Space Woes Have a Long Past | News | The Harvard Crimson)
[Social</a> Life Moves Off-Campus | News | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/5/11/social-space-final-spaces/]Social”>Social Life Moves Off-Campus | News | The Harvard Crimson)</p>
<p>Although Harvard’s housing systems helps to inspire a sense of community, one drawback to the school, noted in the above articles, is the lack of a student center or social space. Most students do form a “really solid bond with their roommates/entryway/house” as couch124 said because there isn’t much of an on-campus alternative.</p>
<p>The Crimson keeps beating that horse, but I haven’t, actually, heard somebody complain about it in person even once. We do have a sense of community; I’m not sure how having a student center would affect that. Would a student center be nice? Yes. I’d probably appreciate another place to study or hang out, even if I can’t imagine myself visiting more than rarely. Do I feel there isn’t community because I have to visit my friends in their actual houses, or have them visit me in mine, rather than meeting in some central other space? No, and I don’t understand why it’s supposed to make me feel that way. I feel like I’m missing something! It’s not a desire I understand or have even seen in other students, including the writers of the articles. I know one of them very well, and even when we’re discussing Harvard’s flaws, lack of social space isn’t one she ever mentions, so seeing her byline there was kind of surprising. Our entryways would be weak if they were our only alternative, but Annenberg serves as an effective social space for the whole freshman class, and then the upperclass Houses are pretty much identically structured to Yale’s colleges. Since everybody would agree that Yale has a strong sense of community [obligatory crack about how being surrounded by New Haven would form a strong sense of community among almost any group of people], and Yalies tout their colleges as one of their main sources of community, I don’t see that we’re lacking in non-student-center institutional structures.</p>
<p>I don’t think people talk about Harvard in relation to Columbia because it’s not something that leaps to my mind to respond to. We’re certainly much better than Columbia; the concerns the author raised there seem irrelevant here. In reading that article, none of his points hit home or seemed true of my own college experience. We aren’t legendarily close-knit, like, say, Dartmouth, but it would seem odd to pop up in that thread and be like “Harvard is also better than Columbia in this way I really have nothing more to say on that topic but yes we are definitely better.” I think that’s why the silence. I agree it’s still odd, but it’s the only explanation I can think of.</p>
<p>I’m not familiar with the social environment at Columbia, but the reason I picked Harvard over, say, Dartmouth was precisely for the House system (instead of focus on Greek life) and the sense of community.</p>
<p>P.S.-Like exultationsy pointed out, the repeated Crimson articles on the same topic was an effort to push the administration to build another student center.</p>
<p>If someone wanted to form an <em>ad hoc</em> group or club - not a club in the sense of a Porcellian or Fly, but - you know - a club around a certain topic or activity, where would they meet, in someone’s room?</p>
<p>The older organizations on campus (like the Crimson, Advocate, band, etc) own their own rooms and buildings. For the groups I’ve involved with, we either meet in House common space or the place where we carry out our activities. If the activity involves students outside of Harvard (ex tutoring high school kids), you can meet in classrooms or reserve computer labs. Or, I guess, you can meet in someone’s room?</p>
<p>Edit: Technically, each officially recognized organization also owns a room in SOCH (<a href=“http://osl.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k65178&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup96869[/url]”>http://osl.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k65178&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup96869</a>), which is sort of like the activity center in the traditional sense, but because the place is kind of far, most people opt to have their meetings in different Houses instead.</p>
<p>classicgirll – on 2 hours of sleep when i wrote that haha – what i meant was both kids from my high school and kids i knew in high school (grew up in boston so a lot of my neighbors went to those feeder ISL schools)</p>
<p>Ah, okay, that makes sense</p>