Read Online The Ivy by Lauren Kunze, Rina Onur - Free Book Online
Authors: Lauren Kunze, Rina Onur
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career as a quantum physicist. Instead of moping, think of attending these classes as going to market on the day a new shipment has just arrived: so many interesting people of different colors and concentrations to look at and choose from, so many fascinating things to do in class other than listening to the teacher.
Here’s a list by category of some of the campus faves:
a. foreign cultures: The Cuban Revolution—because Fidel Castro and Che Guevara make communism look sexy
b. historical studies: Modern European Intellectual History—so you can learn to use terms like existentialism and deconstructionism properly in a sentence then use them often to make other people feel intellectually inferior
c. literature & arts: Poems, Poets, Poetry—get in touch with your beatnik side, or the beatnik guy who sits behind you, and learn to woo with lyricism
d. moral reasoning: Justice—doing “the right thing,” Harvard style
e. quantitative reasoning: The Magic of Numbers—because math really can be magical (and this class is magically easy)
f. science: Life Sciences 1a—future Doctor alert, Hello! (Or if the closest you’ve ever come to going premed involves watching Grey’s Anatomy , your safest bet is probably Dinosaurs or Cosmic Connections.)
g. social analysis: Food and Culture—snacks provided: enough said.
4. something fun: For many of you the definition of fun is “binary regressions and multivariable calculus.” For the rest of us fun is better defined as “easy, engaging, and enjoyable.” I recommend Positive Psychology, where homework assignments include hugging at least seven people a day, or Human Sexuality, in which you can earn an A by writing a paper about an “unusual sexual experience.”
Best wishes as always,
Alexis Thorndike, Advice Columnist
Fifteen Minutes Magazine
Harvard University’s Authority on Campus Life since 1873
M att stared at Callie, watching her tug at her hair. She had The Q Guide in one hand and the Courses of Instruction in the other, which she would read with deep concentration for a moment before pausing to scribble some notes.
“Thanks so much for coming over, Matt,” she said, glancing up and smiling while he tried to look like he’d been concentrating on his class hunt.
“I’ve just been freaking out about this whole class thing!” she exclaimed, painfully aware that she had much bigger things to be freaking out about . . . much, much bigger.
“I have no idea what I want to study,” she continued, determined to stay calm and pretend that everything was fine. As long as Evan keeps his word, nobody at Harvard will ever find out.
“Worst of all, I’m the only one who hasn’t figured it out yet! Vanessa and Dana already declared their majors and Mimi’s just going to ‘go with the flow’ and ‘try not to flunk out’!”
Hearing her name, Dana looked up from the Introduction to Neuroscience textbook she’d been poring over. The three of them were seated around the coffee table in the common room. Mimi was in her bedroom—probably taking a nap—and Vanessa, who subscribed to a far more literal interpretation of the term Shopping Period , had gone to Newbury Street to peruse the high-end, designer merchandise.
“It’s not about the classes , Cal,” she’d explained patiently. “It’s about the clothes !” Still, Callie had elected to stay home. While it was fine for Vanessa, future art history major, to spend the day shopping, Callie had only enrolled in one class—Harvard’s mandatory writing seminar—and still had three more to choose.
Flipping through the art history section, Callie wondered what people learned in classes like Buddhist Art in One Cave, Casts, Construction and Commemoration, or a mysterious-sounding course called simply The Thing. To Callie, these titles sounded fascinating and exotic, infinitely exciting—especially compared to high school. But, oddly enough, when she and Vanessa had been flipping through the
Here’s a list by category of some of the campus faves:
a. foreign cultures: The Cuban Revolution—because Fidel Castro and Che Guevara make communism look sexy
b. historical studies: Modern European Intellectual History—so you can learn to use terms like existentialism and deconstructionism properly in a sentence then use them often to make other people feel intellectually inferior
c. literature & arts: Poems, Poets, Poetry—get in touch with your beatnik side, or the beatnik guy who sits behind you, and learn to woo with lyricism
d. moral reasoning: Justice—doing “the right thing,” Harvard style
e. quantitative reasoning: The Magic of Numbers—because math really can be magical (and this class is magically easy)
f. science: Life Sciences 1a—future Doctor alert, Hello! (Or if the closest you’ve ever come to going premed involves watching Grey’s Anatomy , your safest bet is probably Dinosaurs or Cosmic Connections.)
g. social analysis: Food and Culture—snacks provided: enough said.
4. something fun: For many of you the definition of fun is “binary regressions and multivariable calculus.” For the rest of us fun is better defined as “easy, engaging, and enjoyable.” I recommend Positive Psychology, where homework assignments include hugging at least seven people a day, or Human Sexuality, in which you can earn an A by writing a paper about an “unusual sexual experience.”
Best wishes as always,
Alexis Thorndike, Advice Columnist
Fifteen Minutes Magazine
Harvard University’s Authority on Campus Life since 1873
M att stared at Callie, watching her tug at her hair. She had The Q Guide in one hand and the Courses of Instruction in the other, which she would read with deep concentration for a moment before pausing to scribble some notes.
“Thanks so much for coming over, Matt,” she said, glancing up and smiling while he tried to look like he’d been concentrating on his class hunt.
“I’ve just been freaking out about this whole class thing!” she exclaimed, painfully aware that she had much bigger things to be freaking out about . . . much, much bigger.
“I have no idea what I want to study,” she continued, determined to stay calm and pretend that everything was fine. As long as Evan keeps his word, nobody at Harvard will ever find out.
“Worst of all, I’m the only one who hasn’t figured it out yet! Vanessa and Dana already declared their majors and Mimi’s just going to ‘go with the flow’ and ‘try not to flunk out’!”
Hearing her name, Dana looked up from the Introduction to Neuroscience textbook she’d been poring over. The three of them were seated around the coffee table in the common room. Mimi was in her bedroom—probably taking a nap—and Vanessa, who subscribed to a far more literal interpretation of the term Shopping Period , had gone to Newbury Street to peruse the high-end, designer merchandise.
“It’s not about the classes , Cal,” she’d explained patiently. “It’s about the clothes !” Still, Callie had elected to stay home. While it was fine for Vanessa, future art history major, to spend the day shopping, Callie had only enrolled in one class—Harvard’s mandatory writing seminar—and still had three more to choose.
Flipping through the art history section, Callie wondered what people learned in classes like Buddhist Art in One Cave, Casts, Construction and Commemoration, or a mysterious-sounding course called simply The Thing. To Callie, these titles sounded fascinating and exotic, infinitely exciting—especially compared to high school. But, oddly enough, when she and Vanessa had been flipping through the
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