To current Harvard Students

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

<p>Hey guys.</p>

<p>Right now, I'm really looking into Yale and I love it. I don't know that much about Harvard, but I do want to get to know about it just so that I don't have a narrow focus when it comes to colleges. So I was just wondering if you guys could tell me what it's like being at Harvard and how much you guys love it (since I suspect you do) (i.e. socially, academicly, etc.). Also, if you could (WITHOUT turning this into a Yale vs. Harvard vs. Princeton thing that has happened elsewhere) tell me why you might think it's better than Yale! THANKS!!</p>

2

<p>I think Harvard and Yale are extremely similar in almost every important respect. In fact, I think they are one of the most similar pairs of schools in the country. The intimate housing system, the acadmic strength across the board, and the amazing galaxy of extracurriculars and campus events (and their importance in student life) are what they are both all about. But for me, Harvard's location wins hands down.</p>

3

<p>I have several reasons I chose Harvard over Yale. First difference is the residential system; yale puts you in a college right from freshman year, Harvard assigns you and a group of friends sophomore year. This seems small, but what it means is that you're stuck with luck of the draw in your Yale residential college, whereas here you get to choose 7 of your best friends from the entire campus and live with them for the next three years. </p>

<p>As a corollary, Annenberg (the Freshman d-hall) is an integral part of the freshman experience. You get to eat every meal in a gorgeous dining hall with the entire freshman class. You get to see all your friends in one place (meals are a huge time for casual socializing, especially at a competitive place like H-Y) and more importantly as a freshman, you can meet ANYONE in your class. It fosters a great sense of community, and a feeling that you could get to know everyone in your class if you were so inclined.</p>

<p>In terms of socializing, Yale has a much stricter blue-law system (can't buy liquor after 8pm, some stores get a 9pm extension, and not at all on Sundays), and other than Toad's and a few other bars doesn't really have much of a nightlife alternative to the university (and after a few years of frat-parties/final club parties they will eventually get old). This brings me to one of the biggest draws of Harvard: BOSTON!!!!! I seriously can't emphasize this one enough, I turned down Yale for a variety of reasons, but Prineceton and Harvard were a tossup for me until I considered Boston. By going to Harvard you're coming to a place that strikes a perfect balance between being right in the heart of downtown (four stops on the T to Boston Common) and having it's own neighborhood (Harvard square has pretty much everything you could need). Boston is the country's biggest college town, the history of the city is incredible, and the way it influences your opportunities is awesome. Get student tickets to the symphony, run/watch the Boston marathon (with Harvard, even), get down at the biggest St. Patty's day party in the country, watch a Sox game, go to the bars and clubs downtown, the possibilities are ridiculous and all awesome.</p>

<p>I won't bother to generalize about the students at Yale (and you should ignore any generalizations about the students at Harvard) since any campus of 6000 undergrads is going to have everyone under the sun represented. On that one it's about a tie. Similarly, I won't bother going into academics (even though I think Harvard's better for me in that respect too) unless you have specific areas you'd like addressed.</p>

<p>Lastly (and this is a rather silly feeling on my part, so feel free to disregard this paragraph) I really enjoy living in a place with original architecture. Yale decided in the 1930s that it wanted to look old, so it simply copied European university architecture to the best of its abilities, then sand-blasted the buildings until they looked ‘authentic.’ Harvard’s classical New England style and red brick buildings are true to our roots, and have since come to represent the ‘idyllic’ American campus (the style of brick is even known as Harvard brick). I admit that it's rather petty, and maybe it's because I grew up in England around real-deal Gothic architecture, but Yale always felt sort of like a Disney-land facsimile of Oxford or Cambridge, and after a few years I know it would have started to grate on me that all of the 'old-looking' buildings were kind of fake.</p>

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<p>That's so funny - I went to grad school at Yale and had the same reaction, right down to your "Disney-land" analogy. One of my best friends while I was at Yale used to refer to the architecture as "Mickey Mouse Gothic", a phrase that has stuck with me to this day.</p>

<p>With respect to the OP's question generally - having attended both schools (and having family members who are currently attending or recently graduated from each), I completely agree with Hanna. For all their rivalry, the two schools are extraordinarily similar. If you're lucky enough to get into one, go. If you're lucky enough to get into both, spend some time at each and see where you feel most comfortable. Or flip a coin. If you'd be happy at one, it's virtually inconceivable to me that you wouldn't be happy at the other.</p>

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<p>h-bomber, your post seems really helpful, thank you.</p>

<p>"Similarly, I won't bother going into academics (even though I think Harvard's better for me in that respect too) unless you have specific areas you'd like addressed."</p>

<p>Could you say something about government/political science? And, for that matter, also about economics, psychology and literature? Thanks a lot!</p>

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<p>Personally, if I got into both (very unlikely), I would choose Harvard because it's financial aid package is better.</p>

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<p>^and because Yale is known for law, Harvard for medicine, and medicine >>>> law (I love strawman logic :D)</p>

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<p>I don't think that is an appropriate stereotype. Harvard Law School is, at least in my opinion, at least as prestigious as YLS and both colleges produce tons of future lawyers. Although HMS is probably better than YMS, again both colleges also probably produce their fair shares of doctors. However, I can't help but to get the impression that Harvard destroys Yale at math and science, which is rather quite unfortunate for Yale.</p>

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<p>Yeah, I have heard that Yale is really good in the humanities, i.e. history and stuff. I think that I definitely want to do a science AND a history, but I'm not sure which one I want to pursue as a career goal.</p>

<p>I think I'm still leaning towards Yale. Thanks a lot for your responses everyone!!</p>

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<p>Make sure you visit. I visited both H and Y, and that was what won me over to making my eventual decision. As it has been said, there are many things in common between these two schools. However, the atmosphere is very different at both. I am in love with Yale, but many people feel this way about their school of choice. Make sure you go to the admit program at both, and pick the school that jives with you.</p>

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<p>Anyone who thinks Yale is like a "disneyland" of architecture understands nothing about architecture. Harvard's buildings are far more "facsimilie" than Yale's - they are just knockoffs of colonial houses and/or German institutional structures. Yale's "neogothic" buildings are far more modern interpretations of traditional architecture - many would say they are even more gothic than the original. Yale's campus is far more unique than Harvard's, and generally cost a lot more to build (which translates into spectacular interiors as well as exterior ornament).</p>

<p>In terms of Harvard "destroying" Yale for science, I would actually argue the opposite-see my post here: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060159004-post48.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060159004-post48.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Knockoffs? Nonsense. Harvard's red brick New England Colonial style is the real thing. The older buidlings date back to the actual colonial period. E.g. Massachusetts Hall = 1720. John Adams lived in and attend class in some of these buildings. The newer buldings are continuations of this style in an unbroken line.</p>

<p>Yale's faux-Gothic, by contrast, is an admitted mere imitation of the Oxbridge medieval architecture, but there is nothing medieval about it. It dates all the way back to the 1930s.</p>

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<p>"Continuations of a style" is precisely what makes for bad architecture.</p>

<p>Yale's buildings, meanwhile, are not imitations in any sense of the word.</p>

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<p>"are not imitations in any sense of the word"</p>

<p>Is this (gasp) a facetious statement by posterX!!? Congratulations! I never thought I'd see the day you developed a sense of humor!</p>

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<p>Both Harvard and Yale have a nice mix of old and new architecture. Saarinen did Stiles and Morse at Yale. Corbusier's only building in American is the Carpenter center. Sert did grad student housing at Harvard. Sever Hall is a fine example of Richardson's Romanesque architecture. Bunshaft's Rare book library at Yale and Louis Kahn's Yale Art museum are both well known examples of modern architecture. I'm not crazy about red brick, but it's not a reason to avoid Harvard.</p>

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<p>Wrong again. Imitation of Oxford and Cambridge is exactly what it is:</p>

<p>Yale</a> architecture, from 'Potty Court' to prostitutes | Summer 2001</p>

<p>Excerpt:</p>

<p>"In preparation for the dawn of the "machine age," prominent architects of the 1930s designed houses made either entirely of glass or buildings without any glass at all. Yale, however, hired architect James Gamble Rogers to give the school an older feel. The University sought to imitate Britain's venerable Oxford and Cambridge Universities: established bastions of academic prestige."</p>

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Yale's buildings, meanwhile, are not imitations in any sense of the word.

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<p>Wrong. They're imitations because when they were built, they were specifically designed to mimic older architecture. </p>

<p>I could build a new home today in the Tudor style and even hire craftsmen to use traditional construction methods and no power tools. However, this home would not strictly be Tudor architecture (because the building doesn't date from that period) it would be an imitation of Tudor architecture. Yale, and many other universities have done this exact thing... building buildings copying earlier periods of architecture thus making them look much older than they really are. </p>

<p>Harvard has some of the best examples of original period architecture within a university in the US. However, even Harvard is not immune to this concept of imitation architecture and the university openly admits that Annenberg hall was originally built specifically to mimic the types of buildings found in Oxford and Cambridge. I don't think there's a problem with this, but it would be incorrect to suggest that the architecture wasn't an "imitation." Harvard was, afterall, founded by scholars from Cambridge that came to the new world so I think it's kind of neat that Harvard would then build a building specifically to mimic those found at its parent institution in the old world. </p>

<p>In Oxford and Cambridge the buildings look that old because they ARE that old. The buildings with medieval architecture were actually built during the medieval period. Those universities 'campuses' were built over about 8 centuries and most of it was always built in the style of the period. They never attempted (nor do I think they should have) to unify the architectural style and thus the result is a hodge podge of textbook examples of architecture from over the last millennium. Personally I think that's one of the coolest things about those places. Some of the buildings actually predate the university and I know there are at least a few in Cambridge still in use that are 1000 years old.</p>

<p>American universities obviously don't have the luxury of all that history thus do the next best thing... namely build newer buildings that mimic some of the more popular examples of university architecture in the old world.</p>

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<p>In reading you guys debate about architecture, I can't help but imagine two elite British men discussing it over a cup of tea.</p>

<p>For people who revel in the beauty of Harvard/Yale architecture:</p>

<p>If you want a shock, go take a gander at MIT's status center. It is SO messed up and convoluted that you will throw up at the site of it.</p>

19

<p>Yes, Harvard has some examples of great architecture, but much of it is imitation colonial "style" and not very original. However, calling Yale's buildings "imitations" is an opinion, not a fact. Many architects would strongly disagree. Their disagreement would be based on the facts of how the Yale campus was carefully designed, crafted, and constructed by some of the greatest architects and artists of that generation who were working with some of the most generous construction budgets available at the time.</p>

<p>One way to evaluate it is, would Yale tear down its "imitation" buildings to build new structures? No -- quite the opposite, in fact, Yale has been spending billions of dollars to renovate them to the point where they have literally redefined to the world what it means to "renovate" a building. </p>

<p>If those buildings were just imitations, rather than some of the greatest and most unique architecture in America, they would have just been torn down and rebuilt.</p>

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If those buildings were just imitations, rather than some of the greatest and most unique architecture in America, they would have just been torn down and rebuilt.

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<p>I don't think anyone is questioning that they're great buildings or that they're carefully designed and crafted. In the same way you're criticizing some of Harvard's buildings for being "colonial style and not very original" the same goes for Yale, just a different architectural period.</p>

<p>Just because a building is imitating an earlier period in architecture doesn't mean that they're not great buildings and just because Yale hadn't torn them down doesn't mean they're not an example of imitation architecture.</p>

<p>I already mentioned the example of Annenberg Hall at Harvard and look again right next door in the Sanders Theatre. Harvard says this building was designed after some of Christopher Wren's university buildings in England. The Wren buildings in Oxford and Cambridge were actually designed by Christopher Wren himself whereas the Harvard building is mimicking this architecture. Is that bad? No of course not. Also, Havard too has spent tons of money renovating these buildings and I don't think they'll be tearing them down anytime soon. </p>

<p>There's nothing wrong with universities copying architecture from some of their older counterparts. In fact, I prefer this since the styles they're selecting are being selected because they're popular and 'tried and true' vs. some of the strange modern things often built today. However suggesting that Yale is somehow above all this and hasn't simply copied the style of it's buildings from elsewhere is just silly. The simple fact that most people look at them and assume they're much much older than they really are only serves to further prove this point! ;-)</p>