Cantabrigian Harvardians Call School Home

A few Harvard students still haven't made reservations to fly home for Thanksgiving--but they're not too worried about it.

They're walking home for Thanksgiving.

Living in Cambridge can be pretty convenient sometimes, as students who grew up in the area will tell you. And, although all admit to having felt some reluctance about going to college in their hometown, these students agree that there are many advantages to having Mom, Dad, and Fido within walking distance of Harvard--not to mention Mom and Dad's laundry machines, home-cooked meals, and car keys.

But certainly there is a price. As Jessica A. Mark '89 put it, staying in her hometown for school "just seemed a little non-adventurous."

Charles B. Feininger '88, who grew up on Arlington Street in Cambridge, saw the problem in a different light. "I was reluctant to come here because I didn't know whether it would be tough being so close to home," he says.

"And it really was difficult freshman year," Feininger adds. "I felt more identified with the city--Cambridge itself--than with Harvard. I tended to gravitate towards Cambridge, and therefore not get as involved in the University as I might have wanted, because I didn't feel as comfortable here."

Feininger concludes, "most people who come from somewhere else feel more comfortable at the University."

Mark and Feininger agree, though, that living at Harvard has turned out to be a very different experience from living at home.

"When I'm on campus it's almost like being in a different city," Feininger says, explaining that as his freshman year progressed he began to get more involved with the Harvard community, and less with the Cambridge community.

Benjamin B. Trautman '88, whose Craigie Street home is as far away from the Yard as the Quad is, also felt he had moved away. "I didn't think of Harvard Square as home turf," he says, "and now I do. It's definitely a separate world, even though it's only 10 minutes away."

"Harvard Square is Harvard, and outside of it is not," Trautman says. "Freshman year was the first time the Square was my home."

But even when students begin to feel they really are away at school, the problem remains of convincing nearby parents. Happily--and perhaps surprisingly--few students seem to have encountered difficulties in this area.

"I said to my parents before I came to Harvard," Trautman says, "that if come here I can't be expected to be around at all. I can't be expected to be around at all. I can't feel obligated to see you--I have to be away. The rules were really set down when I came here. I had to know that. I wasn't going to be involved in any family problems or anything like that."

"And it's been very cool," he says. "My parents don't call me--I call them, or I just show up at home. There's no obligation to see them, but I can always go home on weekends, eat good food, do my laundry, use the car, hang out and watch some TV--and just be home. It can be really relaxing."

Christina J. Limberakis '88 has a similar arrangement. "My parents are really good about it," she says. "If I didn't call in, they would pretty much leave me alone. I sort of got that straight, too. I didn't want to come here and be so close if I knew that it was going to be a real tie to home. I do all the initiating, and that's good."

But Limberakis does see a problem. "It is a lot more tempting to just go home if the food really stinks. That isn't so good. I think you've got to learn how to be totally alone."

Jonathan H. Mark '86, Jessica's brother, points out another disadvantage to staying in Cambridge. "You don't have the experience of starting from square one in some new place--in a way you're kind of deprived," he says.

"But," Mark adds, "it's sort of worth it also to have intimate knowledge of the place, and to really feel at home somewhere."

Limberakis agrees. "I'm sure I use Cambridge differently, because I know little spots that no one would really know who didn't live here."

Matthew A. Berlin '89 says that students who grew up in Cambridge not only use the city differently, but see it as most Harvard students can't.

"Cambridge itself is a remarkable place," Berlin says. "The variety of life that you find here is something that most Harvard students don't know anything about. Cambridge has this particular quality to it that Harvard is just one aspect of."

"It's very hard, I think, for a student going here, inundated with work and other students, to see that," Berlin says. "To be able to see the University from the street really gives a totally different perspective."

How did these Cantabrigians perceive Harvard before they became students themselves? Their impressions of the University and the students seem to be as varied as impressions formed anywhere else.

"I went to public high school," says Hannah Gittleman '87, "and Harvard students were always kind of a joke guess it was basically because the ones we noticed were the ones that stuck out the most--the ones who got drunk and ran through Harvard Square singing loudly and being obnoxious. We definitely had a bad image of Harvard students."

Jonathan Mark had a different experience. "I guess I kind of looked up to Harvard students before I got here," he says. "I'd walk through the Science Center on my way to high school, and I'd be there as an outsider while there'd be all these people doing real things, being there for some actual reason. Of course," he adds, "I had no idea what they actually did."