…More posing for the sake of pre-frosh.
By HUNTER RICHARDS
The weeks leading up to Visitas provide an opportunity to reflect on how much Harvard has changed you. I mean, for goodness sake, there was a time sophomore year when you actually thought getting bangs was the move… Thankfully, you found roommates who will keep you humble and limit your horrible life decisions to hooking up with section kid and blacking out before making it to Harvard-Yale instead of something drastic like throwing out all your junk food because you want to be healthier. But your metamorphosis since your own Visitas weekend does not have to taint the experience of the newbies. Here are just a few helpful pointers to help you prepare to be a good host and not come off as the jaded mess you are now.
Set your alarm for the class you’ve skipped all semester
When your pre-frosh are here, it’s important to remind them that college is still about classes. Keep in mind that you removed the reminder that you have lecture from your GCal entirely after add/drop period when you realized class was recorded. It might be a good idea to at least try waking up before it’s over. You don’t necessarily have to go, but the facade that you’re awake and going to be sitting in the front row of Science Center B at 10 am is enough to trick excited pre-frosh. As an added perk, the early rising of the pre-frosh for special events may imbue you with the freshness of your younger years (before you realized what being a morning person actually entailed.)
Block your booty calls
There’s nothing worse than going from the really kind host who offers to show them how the dhall grill works and explain the difference between Radcliffe yard and the Quad, to the shitty upperclassmen who left them locked out of the suite until you returned with your hair in disarray and your underwear shoved into your purse at 2 am. Make sure that you’re going to be free of distractions for Visitas so that your pre-frosh won’t ultimately base their decision to come to Harvard on the atmosphere of House hallways late at night.
Figure out where the obscure buildings are
You do STEM and have never heard of Robinson Hall, let alone know where the philosophy department might be located. Pre-frosh are eager and still full of life, and you can bet they’re going to be asking a lot of questions about where every building might be for events. Being asked about Yenching Library still brings you back to the good ol’ days when Yenching Restaurant was still alive and well, but you’ll learn to hide the pain and answer as if your chest isn’t aching just a little bit for those quality dinners.
Clean your room
You know that you’re definitely not going to have time to clean the night before your pre-frosh arrives, even though you keep promising yourself that you will. You know damn well that you have a problem set due the day before and will be passed out after Yardfest and likely will sleep through picking them up from Agassiz Saturday morning. So there is no time like the present! Just start picking up things here and there, maybe even throw out those old leftovers from Kong that have been in your common room fridge since your last round of midterms. If you are feeling particularly ambitious you might even wash those “kind of clean, could wear again” outfits with the rest of your dirty clothes. Really, you’re not fooling anyone.
The worn out motto of the University, and its iterations, may be to you just the stamp on your waffles. But to pre-frosh, it is the founding of a four-year experience with plenty of shows put on and togetherness feigned for the sake of others.
Hunter Richards (hrichards@college.harvard.edu) embraces this Visitas showing and hopes to end the weekend a little brighter-eyed than when she began it.