A quest for WiFi in rural Iowa
My grandma’s farm had been sitting empty for over a year since she moved in town to the assisted living home. The land was being rented to a neighbor for cattle, but the house where I had spent Christmas and Easter as a kid was empty. Well, not empty – full of old puzzles, half finished sewing projects, mouse poop, and more Christmas decorations than anyone should own. When Mom suggested I move in there with my friends for the fall, I laughed. I called my sister and she laughed too. I was only talking half-seriously about moving in with my friends for the semester, and dragging them—my Harvard friends who had never been to Iowa before—to a run-down farm in the middle of the country was an image I couldn’t seem to conjure to mind.
While I couldn’t quite see myself at the farm, I also couldn’t see myself at home for another four months. My mom has asthma, so my family hadn’t had contact with another human being since March 13. We ordered our groceries online and usually only left the house once a day for a walk around the neighborhood while throwing a frisbee with my brother. I was aware that I had a good environment to do school from home and should have been grateful for that, but when I thought about a semester at home, I felt like an action hero racing towards a metal door slowly shutting. I had to get out.
My friends started searching for Air BnBs on the East Coast, but prices were higher than most of our unemployed wallets would allow. Then Mom said it again, “You guys should live at Grandma’s farm.” And suddenly, the rent-free location made it a little easier for me to see myself living there. It also made the pill of moving to Iowa a little easier to swallow for my non-Midwestern friends. If I could supply the place, they’d supply the human companionship of people outside of my family. I took the deal.
Our two main obstacles were getting all of Grandma’s worldly possessions out of the house so we had room to live, and something you might not have thought about: WiFi. My grandparents never had internet at the farm. They didn’t even have indoor plumbing until my dad was five years old, something he likes to remind us to be grateful for. But WiFi is the indoor plumbing of the 60s in rural Iowa: not everyone has it, and tricky to get. We got auctioneers to come over to the farm and give us a quote for Grandma’s stuff; they’d even do it on an expedited schedule so that we could move in in two weeks when school started. But WiFi was another issue.
“Harvard will send you a hotspot,” my friend advised when I described the problem. But first, I couldn’t bring myself to “lie” on the form, because I did have internet access, just not where I wanted it, and second, hotspots didn’t help when there was no reception in the first place.
We first tried cable internet, but surprise! There are no fiber optic cables running to our specific spot in the middle of nowhere. And no one would lay them to somewhere there were more cattle than phones per acre. Another option was satellite, but I didn’t want to be turning in a final paper and have a characteristic Iowa snow storm take out my Canvas connection as the deadline loomed over me. We considered buying brand new laptops from Verizon that came with data plans, but eventually resorted to hotspots. The most promising provider said that we weren’t in their typical service range, but we were welcome to use their 14-day free trial to give it the old Iowa try.
After the first few days of testing, I told my friends to pack their bags for Iowa. But that was the optimist in me, or maybe just the 21-year-old who didn’t want to sleep in her parents’ basement anymore. The WiFi was like HUDS food, in my opinion: mostly reliable (not great, but reliable), but occasionally there was a real miss. My connection dropped a couple of times in the next couple of days, and I imagined that happening during a presentation or interview. I couldn’t put my and my classmates’ grades on the line like that.
Then I got a text. From a woman I used to go to church with. My mom had called her to see if the church parish was open (it wasn’t), but she’d keep an eye out for us. It wasn’t actually a text she’d sent me, but a link to my town’s Facebook Swap Shop group. It was a posting for a house for rent, specifically looking for four college students. I quickly messaged the woman who’d posted it, making sure to drop that it was four Harvard students. (I hate to drop the H-word as much as y’all, but I was desperate.) I found out that the house she was renting was actually one my mom and I had looked at before, but we didn’t know who owned it.
We toured the place the next day. I took pictures and texted them to my friends. She’d charge us $300 flat per person per month, utilities included, which made my friend who likes to do laundry every day very happy (take that Crimson Cash). But most importantly, they’d have WiFi. Stable, steady, fiber optic WiFi.
We all moved in the day before school started. Our new house is only five minutes away from my house, but after five months in the same 300 square feet, it felt like a million miles. As a senior, I might be able to go back to campus in the spring, but we’ll see (I don’t really trust any long-term plans anymore). Life on campus, especially in the cold months, sounds like it could be kind of isolating, and I worked really hard to get this house that I’m in now.
Harvard’s ill-equipped for supporting off-campus living
Like Jen, the idea of being in my family’s home for another semester seemed a bit daunting when it came time for me to think about my living situation for this fall. The idea of spending a lot more time with my family wasn’t unappealing to me, but for six months during the spring semester and summer break I’d already been dealing with not having any space to call my own. My younger brother took over my childhood bedroom when I moved out for my first year at Harvard, and he wasn’t willing to give it up when I returned.
The announcement that Harvard would be remote this semester brought the realities of my living conditions to the forefront of my worries for the coming semester. My options for sleeping arrangements were bunking with my younger sisters or sleeping on the couch for another six months. I also wasn’t sure how I’d be able to focus on school when I had no real space to study in peace and quiet in a tiny house full of five of my very loud family members, two very vocal dogs, and two entirely-too-squeaky guinea pigs. I had to consider other options.
Harvard’s decision to award $5,000 in aid to students for living expenses for the fall definitely helped my search for a new home for the semester. I also had to bear in mind that I’d have to find a new job fast if I wanted to live on my own, and that working non-remotely could put my health and grades at risk. More or less, my options were to find somewhere cheap to live, or make do with Zoom lessons on my couch while trying to ignore my sisters who like to stream Disney+ during their free time. I considered reaching out to some Harvard friends, but when my boyfriend offered for me to move into his apartment with him and his roommates for a fraction of the prices I was looking at for apartments in my area, I jumped at it.
I was lucky. I’ve heard the horror stories and read the social media rants of many Harvard students who have had a difficult time finding a place to live off-campus after being denied the chance to live in isolation at Harvard. Many students struggled to figure out a new living situation when living at home with their families wasn’t an option for the semester.
In my experience, Harvard College has been ill-equipped to deal with off-campus housing for students. For years now, I haven’t been a fan of the House system and wanted out, but when I looked to Harvard for help, there was only one option that Harvard offered for students who wanted to live off campus. While the Dudley Co-Op seemed lovely, the lifestyle and community they offered really wasn’t for me. Students like myself who wanted to live off-campus but weren’t interested in the Co-Op either had to find an apartment near campus, all of which are ridiculously expensive, or tough it out in the House system.
During my sophomore and junior years at Harvard, I tried everything from joining Facebook Groups for those seeking roommates in the Cambridge area to begging other undergraduates like myself to forsake the House system in the name of independence and not having to sleep in Twin-XL beds.
The only resource, other than the Co-Op, that I’ve found for off-campus living at Harvard is Harvard’s partnership with Off Campus Partners to provide Harvard Affiliates with a roommate and apartment search service. It specifically caters to graduate students, excluding undergraduates, stating on their website,
“This site is owned and operated by Off Campus Partners. The listing of rental opportunities on this site is offered as a service to local rental property owners and to Harvard University graduate students, faculty, and staff.”
Other academic institutions that have partnered with Off Campus Partners, such as: UMass Boston, Boston University, MIT, and Simmons College, just to name a few, don’t make the caveat that the service is only for graduate students. Looking through Harvard’s Undergraduate Student Handbook and Undergraduate Housing websites reveals that they also don’t include much information about the process of living off campus for undergraduates at the college. I only recently discovered a page on the Dean of Students Office website that provides a guide for looking for apartments off campus due to COVID-19, where it’s also stated that access to Harvard Affiliated housing is only available to graduate students and students who are married, veterans, or parents. Other than going through the Dudley Community and getting what tips we can off the DSO page, Harvard College Students looking for a place to live are more or less on their own.
I had no luck with finding off-campus housing before this semester. In fact, by the time the second semester of my junior year came around, I was so disheartened with my living situation in the House system, among other personal issues, that I decided to take a semester off. I’m grateful that in that time I was able to find my current living situation with roommates that I trust and in a safe location, even without Harvard’s help.
Jen Eason ‘21 (jeason@college.harvard.edu) writes Forum for the Indy.
Alaya Ayala ‘21 (alaya_ayala@college.harvard.edu) writes Forum for the Indy and is hoping to continue to live off-campus.