Watch It! They'll Take Your Money and Run

SO IN A FEW WEEKS you'll be coming to Harvard? Excited? All your dreams are about to come true. Your high school buddies are jealous, and you feel a little funny about that, but Jesus are you proud of it. And that cool pride--the pride you'll come to frown upon as uncool, at least with your peers--may make you just a bit more vulnerable than you'd like to think you are.

No doubt the Harvard mystique produces twangs of inadequacy--I'll probably be the dumbest one there--if not out and out intimidation, and with it, your gullibility has probably touched its all time zenith.

Most of you will probably dismiss this trend. But beware, for those of you who have already said "nonsense" are the incoming freshmen who have already been conned. You've probably answered every advertisement you've received. Lord only knows how much printed paraphernalia you get before you even set foot on Cambridge soil (and how much more of it you'll get when you finally do). Let's just say the novelty of it all intrigued you to the point of helplessness.

For those of you who, in your sophistication, resisted those all to obvious approaches to capitalize on your presumed naivete, you'll probably be no less without the advertised comforts: Your mothers, to your own surprise, have probably taken care of everything.

Now for instance, you've undoubtedly received those HSA forms regarding linen service. Don't get it. Go out and buy a couple machinewashable sheets and pillow cases. You'll have them for the extent of your stay here and more, and they'll cost you less. They'll be washed in the machine by you when you feel like it. You won't have to rush about to get back to the dorm in time to exchange your soiled linen for the usually fresh stuff that HSA will provide at specific hours (they're often late, or leave early anyway).

Watch out for the Register-Yearbok application stub. Don't check the box or send a check that covers the purchase of both. You probably will want a copy of the Register (with your picture in it, of course) to check up on where the kid you met at the Union yesterday is from. But for about a decade. Crimson reviewers have panned the Yearbook, and the one you'll get will be abridged anyway--without the pictures of graduating seniors whom you may meet your first year. Many freshmen purchase both, not knowing what the Yearbook is: a bunch of bad pictures of Harvard that are often a few years old.

THE REGISTER--which this year will publish only its third coed edition--is frequently regarded as the key reference book for guys looking for a date. A lot of men tell me that it was of no value to them because there'a just no way Radcliffe women will ever "drag themselves down" to dating freshmen. But the more candid have conceded that the Register is worth owning, even if the best you get out of it is being able to sleep with a picture of the girl you've been chasing unsuccessfully.

Then there are the ring sellers whose wares are worthless. An expresident of The Crimson once told me that he was the only guy on his corridor who managed to evict the ring salesman who obnoxiously pushed his way into his room: "I told him I was a Seventh Day Adventist and that we aren't allowed to wear jewelry." If nothing else works, I guess you ought to give that one a try.

The wise freshman will get lots of sleep the week before he comes to Cambridge. Freshman Week is a lot like summer camp: They keep you very busy and try to provide a balanced diet of entertainment and intellectual pursuit.

The booklist you received via postal courier: please don't take it too seriously. If you're interested in something that's on it, by all means read it. But for heavens sake, you won't be quizzed on its contents and the material may well have nothing to do with the lectures with which they are supposed to be related.

If the lectures look interesting, or if mere curiosity drives you to attend them--go. But it's not expected of you: they are merely for your entertainment (to keep you busy) and you won't be missed. the chances are good that what your roommate is telling you about his home town and/or his high school sweetheart is infinitely more interesting than the lectures.

Go to the mixers and the picnic. You (the men) will probably get sickened by the way some of your female peers will greet you. You (the women) will indubitably vow never again to have dealings with some of the vultures there. But you'll probably all get some sense of the types of kids who came to Harvard with you: you'll be turned off by the unexpected mediocrity of your classmates and simultaneously turned on to wallowing in your new-found confidence.

Check out the Coop. Order your Coop card--cash or change. Next October or so, you'll get a rebate on all your purchases, probably about 5 per cent, and that's a lot when you think how much money you'll be spending a year on books along. If you have a chance Freshman Week, you might browse through the required textbook shelves on the third floor of the Coop annex (the bookstore). You may get from the readings some idea of which courses you'd like to look into that you may have passed up in the catalogue.

When I was on a New York City bus long before I came to Harvard, some lady asked me if I went here. She told me the big green rubber lined sack in which I carried my books to high school for four years reminded her of her father's "Harvard bag." Apparently there is such a beast. And if you don't know what she was talking about, think back to Love Story. For the most part, those big green "Harvard bags" carry no stigma around here so if you want to invest in one, they're a useful commodity, especially when the snows come.

But there are other items more blatantly displayed on the Coop's shelves that are uncool. They used to say that you could tell a Harvardian from his non-Crimson counterpart, because only the latter would be caught dead in a Harvard T-shirt. If you need a sweatshirt because B&G overlooked your dorm when they were turning on the heat, go buy one. Don't go out of your way to find a place that sells them without the Crimson brand across the chest; you'll be frost-bitten by the time you do.

In general, if you need a T-shirt, one can be bought at smaller expense (if you like BVD or Fruit of the Loom) at nearby Woolworths.

Decals are absolutely taboo, although your parents will probably sneak into the Coop before they leave to pick one up for the family car. They probably think going back to the neighborhood without one would be like going back naked.

You may have noticed that everyone, depending on where they're living or where their surnames fit into the alphabet, has been scheduled to take a swimming test. Although there is no physical education requirement at Harvard, you have to prove that you can swim a couple of laps in the Harvard of Radcliffe pool to get your piece of paper four years later.

It's one of Harvard's little idiosyncracies that stems from one of Harvard's eccentric donors. Harry Elkins Widner, a non-swimmer, was killed when the Titanic went down during its maiden voyage in 1912. In his memory, his mother erected a library--the major architectural monstrocity that stands in the Yard and the worst place in which to study in the University. But a stipulation in her contract with Harvard required that every Harvard undergraduate degree recipient know how to swim. ('Cliffe women, of course receive Harvard degrees.) And if you don't know how to swim when you get here, they'll try to make you learn. If you do know how when you reach Cambridge, take the test Freshman Week. If you don't, you'll be receiving little notes from 60 Boylston St. (the Athletic Office) throughout your tenure at Harvard.

The most awsome thing you'll have to face Freshman Week has got to be the registration line. As usual that debacle will occur at Memorial Hall, once the mess hail in which all Harvard men ate when they weren't dining in their chosen club. The line--even if you get there an hour before registration is slated to begin--will stretch for what seems like miles, and once inside, you'll be treated to your first real look at the Harvard bureaucracy.

Registration itself is a breeze: you get a personalized packet with lots of forms and pamphlets, fill out a couple of these and move on to what could be the crux of your "orientation" to Harvard.

Chances are better than excellent (and mind you, this is not the National Weather Bureau forecast) that SDS will try to sell you a Challenge, that someone from PBH will attempt to enlist your support for any of its several programs, that you'll be asked to fill out a form for a sports events ticket book, and that The Crimson will be on hand to push both its daily and the Confi Guide.

A word about the last two items. We like The Crimson. We think it's a worthwhile thing to wake up to in the morning (you'll find it at your doorstep if you get a subscription). A group of roommates will probably find that the investment is a good one.

Somewhere on the long registration line you'll get your first look at this year's catalogue. It will tell you who teaches the course. when it meets a synopsis of the subject matter covered, what day the final exam will be given, and that's about it. It doesn't tell you what the reading list is like, how good the lecturer is, which sectionmen to avoid, and how much work the course will require. The Confi Guide does. It is not to be taken completely at face value, but it provides pretty good information about approximately 150 of the courses you'll find in the catalogue. One of these for a team of roommates will also suffice (we're not greedy).