Lessons from Senior Week

This past week has been Senior Week—the capstone to our senior year and to our four years at Harvard. We danced, we sang, we kissed, and we cried, and it’s hard to believe that it’s all over. Harvard was ours, and we were Harvard’s for one last special week. In hindsight, through the haze of time whizzing by and clocks ticking down, this week has meant a lot, but also taught us a lot, and I thought I’d do my best to revisit some of those highlights.

Finishing Classes

Classes don’t matter. Period. Now before my parents and/or wonderful academic advisor murders me for this one, I’ll qualify that statement by saying that it is relative. Classes don’t matter—but people do. Over senior week, the harsh reality begins to set in that you may no longer be able to casually run into people in the dining hall, or even make plans to grab lunch, because you’ll be on opposite sides of the world. Papers and assignments become irrelevant, as does that episode of Game of Thrones or Revenge, because those will always be online tomorrow, whereas your roommate next door won’t. Harvard teaches those of us who pass through its gates a great deal about how to think critically and engage with theory. But it is that collection of peers who gather after having entered those gates that give this institution’s students a world-class education.

Match 12

This annual web-based crush marathon was strangely appropriate for a group of Harvard seniors. We’ve spent our last four years meeting people in Annenberg, losing touch, rekindling friendships, and sometimes—let’s be honest—just Facebook-stalking. Some of us “crushed” our friends and roommates, others “Bucket List” lovers, but in the end, with more than 7,000 crushes made, it seems like it’s gotten a lot easier to say “Hey, you’re cute” anonymously and over the Internet than it has in person.

But what about those hundreds of mutual matches? Or even those mystery crushers and unrequited crushees? We have only days if not hours to act on them as we see fit, so why wait for Last Chance Dance? Why wait at all, and not just carpe the hell out of this diem? #YOLO!

Midnight Cruise

My best memories of Senior Week—and of senior year in general—are the ones where the class has been together. Now I’m not talking about all 1,600 members of our class being crammed into the Science Center together during a hurricane— that was so freshman year. I’m talking about friends linking arms with roommates linking arms with complete strangers, singing “Don’t Stop Believing” at the top of our lungs in the rain on the top deck of the Midnight (Booze) Cruise. I’m talking about “finding love in a hopeless place” with a thousand other classmates at Royale when all that matters is being right in the here and now. Those moments have been pure magic, and are a testament to the power of the Class of 2012. So here’s to living every week like it’s senior week.

Bonnie Cao is a senior in Pforzheimer House and the First Class Marshall for the Class of 2012.