Editors' Choice
What It Means to Lead The Harvard Crimson
In a way, you take an oath when you are elected to this presidency, even if you don’t realize the depths of its demands at the time.
Most Whimsical: Jeremy Ornstein
“One of my most whimsical qualities is talking to strangers,” he says. In the summer of 2021, he walked 400 miles from New Orleans to Houston talking to strangers about climate change. “We just stopped everyone we could and talked to them — talked to a truck driver about the coastal erosion, and a guy in an excavator, and a fisherman,” he continues.
Most Chill: Micah Williams
“Some people say you can maximize luck, you know, you can put yourself in a position to be lucky. I think the same thing is true for happiness.”
Tunnel Vision
On my phone, I collected gold coins and hoverboards instead of accolades and exam scores; I traded these tokens for score boosters instead of writing mentorships. Eventually, I realized that I had sworn off one endless run only to replace it with another one.
Unapologetic Selfhood with Matta Zheng
“When students come to me — many, if not all the times — they’re really suffering because they’re worried, they’re concerned, or maybe they even believe that their person is fundamentally wrong in some way,” Zheng says. “I am able, when it’s appropriate and when it works, to affirm to them in no uncertain language, in the fullest ways that I can, their full humanity, their full perfection, their full wholeness.”
Behind the Scenes at Boston Supper Clubs
In recent years, the Boston area has seen a flourishing of private multi-course dinners. They take a variety of forms: a pop-up in a restaurant, a meal around a table. Prices range widely, from $30 to more than $200, and the hosts run the gamut as well from amateur to professional chef.
Harvard Dropout Avi Schiffmann is Making an AI-Powered ‘Wearable Mom’
Having once turned down a multimillion-dollar offer to monetize a Covid-19 tracking website, Avi Schiffmann now intends to “conquer” the world of wearable AI.
An Asthmatic Character
“A person should stand up straight, not crooked,” my mother would whisper, referring to both the calligrapher and her creation.
Ask John (Harvard): Puritan Problem Solving for Modern Times
John Harvard knows you are afflicted with homework, lust, and sloth! Read on to be saved!
Brooks Lambert-Sluder, the Adviser’s Adviser
Brooks B. Lambert-Sluder ’05 is now the assistant director at the Advising Program Office and overseer of the Peer Advising Fellows program, but he recalls feeling a lack of support when he first arrived at Harvard — at the time, the PAF program did not yet exist.
No Country for Harvard Men
I felt like I had entered a thick and strange haze. Daily showers made me feel unnaturally clean, and I missed the smooth arc of the sun across the sky. I felt like a space alien walking down a crowded street and making small talk after class.
15 Liminal Spaces
It is the time of year when we find ourselves floating within in-betweens. To capture this quality/state/feeling, FM set out to find 15 of the most liminal spaces on campus.
Chronicling ‘The Good Life’
Despite the way it is often discussed, the study hasn’t always been so focused on happiness. In fact, the goals, methods, and analysis of the research that form the history of the study have varied dramatically, from defining the “normal” man and justifying certain “breeding” practices to understanding the causes of delinquency.
Optional Practical Training, But A Compelled Concentration Choice
“If it wasn’t for the STEM OPT and I didn’t have to worry about work visas or anything at all, I would have done Hist and Lit or History and done a secondary in something else,” Sunshine Chen ’27 says. Instead, she is considering adding Economics as a double concentration.
Joseph Fasano is Not Ready to Renounce the Universal
Fasano is not your typical poet’s poet. Far from content with keeping poetry ensconced to its narrow readership of academics and literary savants, he has worked in past years to democratize the genre.
Goodbye, Beloved
To me, Sethe was the literary embodiment of womanhood — the queenly woman with blood on her hands and a tree scarred into her back. She was the personification of repression and “rememory,” the manifestation of a traumatic past into the present.
On the Run with Graham Blanks
I’m buckling up my helmet when Blanks walks out of Winthrop House, wearing Harvard Cross Country gear head to toe. He tells me we’ll be “jogging” today, at a 7:21-minutes-per-mile pace. The average non-elite male runner races a 5K at 9:28 minutes per-mile pace. Blanks runs towards the river, feet pattering like a steady metronome while I pedal beside him.
Taylor Swift: Harvard’s Version
“We are lucky enough to be living in a time when one of our major artists is also one of the most famous people on the planet,” Burt says. “Why would you not have a course on that?”
FM’s Campus Ghost Tour
On this Halloweekend, remember more than just your jackets when you leave the Mather JCR. Take a look at a few of Harvard’s most persistent spirits — you might even encounter one as you cross campus this week.
Fifteen Questions: Bruno Carvalho on Cities, Bike Lanes, and Punny Halloween Costumes
The urbanist sat down with Fifteen Minutes to discuss cities and urban studies. “I’m not sure I would say cities are inherently anything except for places where strangers live among each other and places where constructions are supposed to last beyond a single generation,” he says.
Buying Time
The Time Trade Circle is a Cambridge-based time bank that serves the Boston metropolitan area. The principle is straightforward: you complete a task for someone, and the number of hours it took to complete the task is deposited into your account. You can then “cash in” those hours whenever you want.
To Be Tamed
“The Little Prince” makes me homesick for all the places I’ve been and all the places I have yet to see.