Picture this.
It’s Friday night. You’ve been waiting for this point all week. You made it through two Econ 10 lectures, stayed (mostly) awake through all three hours of your freshman seminar, consumed the mystery meat being served in the dining hall, went to 6+ comp meetings for clubs you’ll never get into, turned in 17 covid tests, worked up the courage to go to the gym, and consistently neglected to do laundry.
You tell yourself it’s okay you didn’t go out Thursday night—it could wait another night. After all, it’s better to save your energy anyway. Friday would be the night to end all nights. Right?
Wrong. It’s 9 pm when you start sending out texts. “What’s going on tonight?” Your heart sinks a little more each time you get the same response. 2 words, 8 fateful letters:
The river.
Once you’ve had enough drinks to stomach the fact that you’re going to the river yet again, you begin heading over. It doesn’t take long until you spot the massive horde in the distance. As you get closer, the dark mob begins to take the shape of students—unrecognizable in the pitch black. There are probably 200 Harvard first-years standing next to the Charles, each one worse at handling their alcohol than the next. The absence of music makes it painfully awkward, especially once you’ve run through the typical lineup of conversation-starters: where are you from? what dorm are you in? You scramble to find a familiar face, only to find that one kid in your section whose name you can’t remember. The minutes crawl by.
When you’ve finally had enough (and it doesn’t take long), you decide to call it a night. You’ve almost escaped back to your dorm when someone in the throng of people shouts something that resembles “Jefe’s.” You can’t resist—what night is complete without some subpar Mexican food?
You only sort of regret buying two orders of the nachos—they must taste better at 2 am. It’s an hour later when you finally get back to your dorm. As you fall asleep, drained from the weight of your own disappointment, you find yourself trying to remember why you didn’t just go to a big state school. It doesn’t help that your social media has been nonstop flooded by seas of yellow and blue on game day. But, as always, you are kept afloat by one thing, and one thing only: the tragically naive pipedream that next week will be better. (Spoiler alert: it won’t be.)
In the post-COVID era, there has been a conspicuous absence of social activity at Harvard, especially for first-years. Even the few planned events have been cancelled: I think we all remember lamenting the loss of B.O.B. upon hearing our beloved Crimson Jam concert was “indefinitely postponed.” Most weekends turn into an endless scramble to find plans, only to end up in a dorm with a dozen other kids you hardly know with only a vague memory of how you ended up there. “The dorm scene was tolerable to begin with, but got repetitive pretty quickly,” says Nicole Uribe ’25. This sentiment has been echoed by many first-years. “At this point,” Sam Suchin ’25 says, “an exciting Friday night means Pinnochio’s or Jefe’s.”
Yet the social scene may be beginning to improve. Now that clubs have begun their “comp” processes, there are more organized events on campus than in the first couple weeks of the semester. Students are also beginning to take advantage of many social opportunities outside of Cambridge. “I always thought there was nothing to do, but I think we’ve all sort of had tunnel vision,” says Caroline Baynard ’25. “There are so many other schools in the area that we can go to, and we essentially have all of Boston at our disposal.”
Harvard may be going through a bit of a social dry spell. But my dramatically cynical reflection aside, is that really such a bad thing? After all, we didn’t come here for the parties. This is the place that opens up an unlimited number of opportunities, not only in our four years on campus, but for the rest of our lives. This is the place where we will meet the kind of people who will leave an indelible mark on our worlds and the world. “I couldn’t be luckier to go to a school where everyone you meet is extraordinary across disciplines,” says Cole Breen ’25. “I’m hoping to leave this place even half as clever and capable as my classmates.”
First-years: you get to go to Harvard. Anyone would give just about anything to be standing in your shoes. And if that means the occasional river function, then so be it.
Brooke Stanford ’25 (bstanford@college.harvard.edu) is two dry weekends away from transferring.