Word: thought
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Freshman Week at Harvard I discovered I hadn't remained as immune to elitism as I had thought. I watched others' excitement at living away from home with an arrogant sense of superiority. It wasn't new for me. So I sought out people I hardly knew from school to commiserate with. And I insulated myself from other people, waiting for classes to start and for the intellectual challenge that three years of Andover had prepared me to expect...
...pored over the mammoth course catalog, marvelling at its range and breadth. Foundering, I decided to take my proctor's advice and fulfill my requirements first. I groped for some sense of direction and settled on the survey courses--I'll read everything from Plato to Marx, I thought excitedly. Then I went to my first class, and fought for standing room with hundreds of other people. I listened (there were too many people to see) as the professor told us to fill out index cards; she would select and admit to the course a fraction of those assembled...
...furious. To hell with them all, I thought. This place is not going to destroy me. Searching around for something to do, I ran into an Andover grad I had barely known who had been trying for months to get me to comp for The Crimson. I told him I never slept much, and he said I was a natural. I marched into the building determined not to take any crap and to do well. My first day I tackled two stories, the first about a black student accusing a teacher of racism, and the second about...
Spring term reading period came, and I didn't panic too much. I had at least twice the amount of work to do, but ended up doing twice as well. My exams over, I walked back to Stoughton to pack, ecstatic at the thought of leaving the dorm that symbolized for me all the horrors of the year. No more Campfire Girls parties, with shrieking women and very drunk jocks; no more science nerds scuttling around nervously; no more of Chuck's inanities. No more freshman year, with that painful sense of being different...
...Core--students would be required to take a total of eight half-courses in five major areas--Literature and Arts, Historical Study, Social Analysis and Moral Reasoning, Foreign Languages and Cultures, and Sciences--that would contain a number of precisely-defined courses designed to teach specific "modes of thought." This year, Rosovsky and other faculty members set about drawing up these courses--with the help of a few token students forbidden to talk to their peers about the shape of the Core. When the courses were unveiled this spring, many students wondered again what the fuss was all about...