Artistic Guide to Harvard: Scariest Classrooms

As if classes weren’t frightening enough, these Harvard classrooms add to the overwhelming fear that any timid freshman might experience on the first day of college. The anxiety brought on by creeping deadlines and growing piles of psets seems to be amplified once you step into any of the following rooms.

By Katherine L Borrazzo

Barker Center 114: Kresge Foundation Room

The Kresge Foundation Room has many great qualities. Blue velvet chairs welcome newcomers as they take seats at a long, oval, wooden table. A grandfather clock ticks quietly in the corner. Large windows bring in much-needed sunlight.

But the one thing that jumps out at people as they walk into the room is the massive stone-gray fireplace that looks like it could set all of Barker Center on fire if it wanted to. Remember that Halloween movie “Monster House” from when you were a kid? The one where a spooky house comes to life and eats children? That’s where this fireplace belongs. It looms over even the tallest kid in section, juts out from the wall, and looks suspiciously like a giant mouth.

By Courtesy of Özdemir Vayısoğlu

Sanders Theatre

Familiar to CS50 students, Sanders Theatre can seat up to 1,000 people and is a member of the League of Historic American Theatres. If that title isn’t intimidating enough, check out the white stone statues on the sides of the stage. The figures of John Otis and Josiah Quincy, sculpted by Thomas Crawford and William Wetmore Storey, respectively, give students stern looks as if they know about the unfinished psets stuffed in their backpacks. “Have you finished the reading?” Quincy might ask as he stares down anyone foolish enough to sit in the front. “Doubt it,” Otis’s folded arms seem to say.

The solution? Sit in the back. Or don’t go to class at all. The lectures are all online anyway, right?

By Katherine L Borrazzo

Science Center: Halls A through D

The Science Center halls are an aesthetic nightmare. While Barker 114 might bring back horrible childhood memories, the Science Center halls will make you recall those elementary school finger-painting days, when random colors were splashed onto a canvas and then hung on the fridge as “art.” Why are the seats and walls green and blue? Are they meant to represent the Earth? Growth and tranquility? Or are they just ugly?

—Staff writer Grace Z. Li can be reached at grace.li@thecrimson.com