Word: insularity
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...institutional history, and students find themselves frustratingly trying to reinvent the wheel—and doing it alone. Moreover, for many students, there is an intractable sense of competitiveness that pervades Harvard’s co-curricular landscape. Each group exists as an island to itself, developing unhealthy, insular tendencies. It doesn’t have to be this way, and Harvard students do not want it to be this way. In its first year being offered, Psychology 1508, “The Psychology of Leadership,” taught by Lecturer on Psychology Tal D. Ben-Shahar...
Harvard’s House system isn’t working. Shorn of their pre-randomization characters and rendered impotent by insular blocking groups, the College’s 12 Houses can’t possibly hope to transcend their own bricks and mortar to become viable incubators of community. A significant change in how Harvard assigns its students is long overdue; since randomized housing, any success at creating House community has come in spite of the system, which fricassees House populations into complete incoherence along blocking group lines...
...importance of class years fades away as strong friendships and mentorships form. 3. On the other hand, don’t lose track of friends in other Houses. Close friends may be split up because of the randomization of housing assignments, but that is no excuse to be insular. Once you befriend your housemates, and your friends from freshman year do the same, your circle of friendship can expand exponentially. Visiting a friend in another House opens up a new world of social opportunity.It is telling that when my classmates and I graduate this June, we will celebrate first amidst...
...these goals. In fact, it may have even been counterproductive. In many cases, once students enter the Houses—rather than happily intermingling with everyone in the house, sharing insights on cultural and extracurricular experiences—they are likely to be content with socializing within the tiny insular unit of their blocking group. And if anyone does bother to venture outside that special group of eight or less, it’s probably to another House to visit the other people they wanted to live with had they been given any type of choice. As a result, while...
...Foundation, a women’s center, and a BGLTSA resource center in the Yard sounds really good in brochures, on guided tours, and in the minds of administrators far removed from student life. These administrators think that if internationals, gays, Asians, Latinos, blacks, and women get their own insular support groups and dedicated Yard offices, then they will be happy. Maybe “they” will be. But the Harvard students whose common activities, shared academic interests, and co-mingled life goals matter more to them than their races, creeds, and sexual orientations will outnumber them...