Joe College, Where Art Thou?
In a sterling case of wanting most what you don’t have, Harvard students have developed a major preoccupation with the inadequacies of our campus social life. We lament that weekends at Harvard begin only on Fridays and last only until the early hours of Sunday morning. When there are actually parties, we complain that there are not enough or that they are not well attended—or that they are too well attended and insufficiently ventilated. Driving this relentless self-criticism is a vague and somewhat variable notion of the so-called mythical “other schools” against which we measure the merits of our own social life. The “other schools” are essentially a composite of everything which we believe Harvard lacks or, quite simply, the ideal party school. At “other schools,” there are parties every night, which rage tirelessly into the wee hours of the morning. These fêtes disband only at daybreak and only so their patrons might go forth to mate vigorously with one another as well as to atten
