Reasons Why You Wore Your Harvard Sweatshirt to the Airport

Are you thinking about wearing your Harvard gear to Boston Logan this weekend? If so, prepare yourself for some major whiplash. One moment, you’re getting side-eyed by your classmates who opted for a more subtle look (a CBE Patagonia). The next, an eager mom is asking for your SAT score, high school GPA, and the exact metaphor you used in your Common App essay (they don’t know that you were a personality hire and were barely squeaking by grade-wise).

So, why do we, as Harvard students, even bother? Today, we are setting the record straight. Here’s a deep dive into the entirely factual, highly psychological, and utterly economic reasons why you might deck out in Crimson for your next flight.

To impress the airport crush you’ll never see again

This just in: Southwest Airlines offers free in-flight entertainment, and it is the fleeting eye contact you make with the hottest person you have ever seen.

How do the most attractive people sit near you on a flight but never in your 9 a.m. lecture? Who are these people? Where do they come from? Do they only exist 30,000 ft above sea level?

Science says that there is no better icebreaker than telling someone your greatest achievement. Being a nerd is hot. I think. Please tell me I’m right.

Because you need a job

Have you been rejected from 50 unpaid internships this year? Have resume drops let you down? Have you realized that those “optional” cover letters were in fact not? Flyby hears you, and we have a solution.

Ladies and gentlemen, networking does not end at the McKinsey Open House. It crosses lines… state lines.

A rich alum could be anywhere: getting patted down at TSA, buying a $13 bottle of water, or snoring next to you on flight. This is your chance. How do you tell them without telling them?

Your sweatshirt, of course. It’s your resume. Your silent LinkedIn request. Your gateway to financial freedom. If you’re lucky, you’ll walk away with a business card. If you’re prosperous, you’ll hear a “Well…my firm happens to be hiring…” pleasantly ring through your popped ears during takeoff.

Because it’s all you have in your closet

When you admit a bunch of student council kids into one school, it’s no surprise when they show a little extra school spirit. Chances are, your closet looks like The Harvard Shop exploded in it — you can’t help it, it’s in your blood.

From your CS50 shirt to the NPC athletic shield crew you got freshman year, the laundry piling up in the corner of your room tells the story of every fair you’ve attended, every club you comped, and every free t-shirt you couldn’t say no to.

Let’s not forget the $99 you dropped on a sweatshirt for Harvard-Yale. It has to be put to use somehow, right? You didn’t spend that much to use it as a pajama top, right?

To save money

$75 Ubers for a 20-minute ride? I believe Jason Furman calls this “price gouging.”

Your only guaranteed way to get a 50% discount is by cleverly finding someone who shares your destination in Harvard Square.

Asking strangers at Boston Logan where they live is a fast track to getting weird looks, or worse, a restraining order. The next best alternative is by, literally, wearing it on your chest. With the letters H-A-R-V-A-R-D pasted across your sweatshirt, you can watch as floods of students approach you at Terminal B with a grateful “You go to Harvard?”

Congrats! You just hopped in an Uber with a freshman and saved $37.50!

Now, enjoy the awkward small talk, the silence mid-ride, and the unspoken agreement to never acknowledge each other on campus again.

To clout farm

We get it. You just like the attention, and that’s okay.

Whatever your reasons may be, you may find comfort (or disappointment) in knowing that the chances of people actually believing you go to Harvard are extremely low. At the end of the day, everyone just thinks you bought it at H&M or off a street vendor in Times Square anyway.