Photo illustration by Liz Zonarich/Harvard Staff

Campus & Community
How to make the most of your first year at Harvard

Shop classes, avoid echo chambers, embrace the Red Line — and other faculty tips for new students

Liz Mineo

Harvard Staff Writer

September 3, 2024 9 min read

For the more than 1,650 first-year students who moved in last week, College has already started amid excitement and occasional jitters. We asked faculty to share advice with members of the Class of 2028 on how to make the most of their first year. Here is what they had to say, in their own words.

Harvard file photo

‘Just about everyone feels overwhelmed, or lonely, or stupid, or unprepared for College at some point’

Alison Frank Johnson
Professor of History, Department of History

My first recommendation for new students is to take at least one risk academically. I don’t mean a course that seems like it’s going to be “hard” so much as something off the beaten track for Harvard first-years. There’s a lot of passed-down knowledge about what to do: take a freshman seminar, Ec 10, a big gen ed, expos, and maybe Math 1. Hundreds — literally — of your classmates will choose four out of those five options in the fall. And you might think that if everyone does it, it can’t be the wrong thing to do. Fair enough. But I would still say: Consider doing something else. Consider taking a class in a discipline that didn’t even exist in your high school but that you’re curious about. Maybe anthropology.

My second recommendation is to go to office hours, but I figure everyone says that, so I probably don’t have to elaborate.

As for as things to avoid — I guess I would say suffering in silence. It’s easy — especially at Harvard — to assume that everyone else is having a great time, that everyone else thinks classes are easy and has a ton of friends and is just having the best time ever and so if you are struggling with anything, it’s because you don’t actually belong at Harvard. But I would bet that, whether you know it or not, just about everyone feels overwhelmed, or lonely, or stupid, or unprepared for College at some point. Whatever you’re struggling with, there’s someone who wants to help you with it. There are tutors, and teaching fellows, and faculty; there are counselors, and proctors, and peer advisers, and coaches. Somewhere in that group of people is at least one person who deserves your trust and will help you. Reach out!

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

Dig deep when picking classes. Don’t overpack schedule.

Jie Li
Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations

In my last year of high school, I came across a memorable quotation from Arthur Miller at my public library. He recalled his university experience as “the testing ground for all my prejudices, my beliefs, and my ignorance.” I took this as my motto for what I wanted to get out of College as well. College is a space to meet kindred spirits, but this doesn’t necessarily mean spending time exclusively with people like you. Rather than the comfort of any echo chamber, you learn much more from people from different backgrounds. Be an empathetic listener and refrain from making quick judgments.

Don’t be afraid to take risks and venture out of your comfort zone in your choices of classes and extracurriculars. Apart from continuing what you excel at, follow your curiosity and try something new. Browse through lists of courses by department rather than only search for keywords you are already familiar with. Before classes began in my freshman year at Harvard, my roommate and I spent hours reading through a thick printed course catalog and sharing our discoveries of interesting classes and fields unavailable to us in high school. Had I only relied on algorithms to choose classes, I may not have ended up studying anthropology or film studies. Take some small classes. You will get to know your professor and classmates much better, feel more invested in the class, and thus participate more actively. Don’t overpack your schedule. Drop a class or extracurricular commitment if you no longer have time for fun, friends, meals, exercise, or sleep.

Harvard file photo

Attend events on campus and across the Charles. Explore library treasures.

Joseph Blatt
Senior Lecturer in Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education

My daughter Talia graduated from the College last year; I graduated so long ago that I no longer divulge the year. But despite the time lapse, we find that our advice for first-years is quite similar. Our joint recommendations:

Your academic experience will be far richer if you make the effort to get to know some of your professors. Take advantage of office hours — they are often shockingly underattended — and don’t be shy about engaging in conversations that go beyond the boundaries of the course. You can even invite them to dinner, and Classroom to Table will pay!

Think of Harvard as your fifth course (or sixth for the overzealous). The torrent of talks, performances, and other events that flow across campus every week will offer some of the most powerful learning you’ll experience here — along with the chance to meet new people, exercise your body and mind, and indulge in an unbelievable amount of free food.

Explore Harvard’s more than 60 libraries, where you will find treasures not available on screen: wonderfully obscure books, an amazing historical map collection, precious manuscripts, famous people’s recipes … along with brilliant reference librarians who are unfailingly eager to help.

The Red Line, with all its faults, is your ticket to downtown Boston. Don’t miss the Freedom Trail, art museums, music venues, and cuisines from around the world. And that way, when people ask, “Where do you go to college?” and you respond “er … Boston,” you’ll be closer to telling the truth.

This is starting to sound too much like “Let’s Go,” so we leave you with two thoughts focused on your studies: Pay attention to how you learn and choose courses and classrooms that make you happy; and don’t compare yourself to your peers — be pleased for their success, not threatened by it.

Photo by Jon Ratner

Ask for help. Study abroad.

Gabriela Soto Laveaga
Professor of the History of Science, Antonio Madero Professor for the Study of Mexico, Department of the History of Science

I would definitely tell first-year students to think of asking for help as a necessary part of being successful at Harvard and beyond. Time and again, I see that the most successful Harvard students are the ones who not only reached out for help (either with writing, math, mental health, for instance), but knew who or where to ask. First-years need to explore the support network that is offered to them and use it. It is there for them.

Also, they must all do a study abroad while they are students.

Niles Singer/Harvard Staff Photographer

Try everything. Share projects. Requirements can wait.

Stephanie Burt
Donald P. and Katherine B. Loker Professor of English, Department of English

Starting with academics, and moving into the rest of your life:

DO: Take classes that look interesting, especially if they’re small. Your first year can let you explore your actual interests, even if they’re not connected to your planned concentration, grad school, or career. You might even change those plans to reflect a talent, or a power, or a strong interest you didn’t know you had!

DO: Shop. We’ve got an add-drop period for a reason. Listen to the professor and see if you vibe with that teaching style. Speak with the professor if you like! And talk to non-first-years who’ve taken courses with that professor before.

DON’T: Try to get all your requirements out of the way early. You can take the requirements that don’t matter to you (for most people those are gen eds) junior or senior year when your other classes are big-deal, high-effort courses in your concentration. There’s no reason to take more than one gen ed in a term: Especially curious or ambitious first-years might take none.

DO: Study the past. Don’t confine yourself to the present as you choose courses in the arts and humanities. A lot of fascinating people died a long time ago. Some of them made some cool stuff.

DO: Try everything, including stuff you didn’t think you were good at. Many of us got to Harvard by choosing, in high school, mostly to do stuff we considered ourselves very good at. You got into Harvard. You have room to experiment. Comp or do something you never thought you could do.

DON’T: Stay on campus all day every day. The musical, literary, theatrical, gamer-nerd, ethno-cultural, culinary, recreational, and technical offerings of the Greater Boston area far exceed what you can find on campus, even though campus has a lot to offer. You may find your favorite new band at the Middle East (the rock club in Central Square, not the geographic region). You could find your new best friend at MIT.

DO: Look for people like you. Intense Dungeons and Dragons players, fashion plates, curling obsessives — Harvard’s big enough that you can probably find at least a few peers.

DON’T: Assume people unlike you won’t hang out with you. Some of the friends you make this year will have backgrounds much like yours. Some very much won’t.

DON’T: Spend all your time studying. Honestly, Harvard students probably spend less time on average studying — especially if you exclude future doctors — than students at some other super-elite colleges, and that’s a feature, not a bug, for Harvard: You’ve got time to meet students who share your ambitions, and take part in massive shared projects, and build what you want to build, and discover what you want to discover, both with, and far away from, classrooms and grades and professors like me.