Who Do You Root for When There Is No Home Team?
To outsiders, it is not unrealistic to draw comparisons between Boston’s sports pandemonium and a herd mentality. Any outing on the Red Line can easily be transformed into a riveting game of counting how many toddlers in Red Sox paraphernalia or grown men in Bruins jerseys you can spot during the work week. To the […]
A Conversation with Harvard College Commencement Undergraduate Speaker Noah Eckstein
Trading Senior Class Committee events and final exams for a different kind of cumulative project, the 2026 English Undergraduate Oration Speaker has had a distinct senior week experience from their peers. Noah Eckstein ’26 will deliver one of three orations by memory on Thursday, May 28, 2026, during the College’s 375th commencement exercises, along with […]
Money Up, Admissions Down: Harvard’s Endowment Management Amidst Crisis
In 2025, Harvard University had to completely reevaluate the way its endowment is used. Harvard’s endowment has historically sought high-return investments in order to sustain annual withdrawals for University operations. In 2025, however, shifts in the national policy landscape—namely, higher tax rates and the Trump administration’s attempt to freeze federal funding—have forced Harvard’s endowment to […]
Dr. Jason Furman Becomes Director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government
On April 30, 2026, Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy Jason Furman ’92 was announced as the next co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, previously held by former Charles W. Eliot University Professor and Harvard University President Emeritus Larry Summers ’82, who resigned from the University following the release of […]
New Virus, Old Wounds
In recent weeks, headlines about a hantavirus outbreak linked to a cruise ship in the South Atlantic have been impossible to avoid. Public health agencies have repeatedly emphasized that the outbreak, caused by the Andes strain of hantavirus, involves a limited number of cases tied to a specific exposure rather than widespread community transmission. In […]
Appreciate Harvard Yard
Harvard Yard is a beautiful place; it is chaotic neutral. In my head, the Yard could be compared to Times Square—if all the billboards were replaced by engraved brick buildings, and the costumed performers replaced by squirrels (can you tell I haven’t been to Times Square?). It really is a bubble, even though most days […]
Kitchen Sink No. 15
I came to in a body that was only mine, the singleness foreign. For months, I had woken into crowding—the press of another attention behind my eyes, the sense of a second man already up and working before I had woken at all. That was gone. The body lay on the bunk, and the body […]
A Walk in the Park
In T-minus 3 days, I will embark on my summer adventure to intern in Los Angeles. Living alone, 3,000 miles away from home, this will certainly be a change of pace from the past three months of the non-stop Harvard College lifestyle. I grew up essentially an only child. While I have three half-siblings with […]
Exploring Worldwide Hometowns: Battle Creek, Michigan
It feels like most at Harvard have a claim to a well-known city. Whether they’re from urban centers, the suburbs, or somewhere within city limits, people usually hail from places like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington D.C. But when someone asks me the quintessential getting-to-know-you question, I never have a simple answer. […]
Your Guide to Summer Music Festivals
School’s out, and that means it’s festival season! From local indie and country festivals in my hometown to big-name events like Lollapalooza and Boston Calling, summer music festivals have been an annual tradition for me. Between seeing all your favourite artists, amazing fashion, and the adrenaline rush of dancing amongst a crowd of thousands for […]
The New Gilded Age
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a massive Lorde fan. It’s in part because of her lyricism, and in “Still Sane,” the bridge repeats “Only bad people live to see / Their likeness set in stone.” This line has never been more relevant than it is today. It’s no secret that the political landscape […]
A Drag Path
What does it mean to show one’s existence? What mark can one make as proof of their time on Earth? These are broad questions with no definitive answers. Nonetheless, we ponder these questions as we age, as every moment in life seems more important than the last. It is this tension between impermanence and the […]
New Beginnings Reading List
In honor of the year’s end, the “Harvard Independent” has compiled a list of books with new beginnings—meant for the seniors who are moving forward with their lives and the undergraduates who have the opportunity for another collegiate term. Whether the protagonist is young or old, spirited or resigned, each work grapples with the struggles […]
A Different Side of the Derby
“The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports” is no stranger to controversy. Over the years, the Kentucky Derby has faced backlash from those who condemn the barbaric treatment of horses for entertainment. They assert that it’s an extravagant “display of wealth and greed,” simply because the patrons can. Critics go so far as to call […]