Harvard: Duke of the North?

"Uh, uh, uh... um... he-... he-...," panted one student hovering over another in a secluded corner of library book stacks. "Yes?" replied the seated student.

"I... I... don't know what to do! I'm so stressed out, I can't think, I have two exams tomorrow, a 20-page paper due the next day and I... I... I--"

"Are you okay? Do you need someone?" the baffled girl said, not sure who this student standing over her was or if she was having a nervous breakdown. Did she need counseling? Should somebody call the librarian?

"Whoa, slow down. Just calm down. Maybe you should take a break or something."

"A break? No, ah, n-, no, it's just tha--"

"What? What?"

"Well, I'm really trying to, to study a-a-and...."

Did she have a speech impediment? A stutter? Was she in a state of shock?

There was no nervous breakdown, no state of shock, no trauma. It was Harvard. Enough said. The speech impediment was not the shocking part. That was normal in Cambridge, Mass. Sociability was not considered a plus at Harvard, something I first realized when I was asking for directions to Lowell House, my friend's dorm. I kept looking for someone to give me directions to her room, but few knew much more than the path from their own dorm to the library.

Finally I decided to walk into Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square and give her a call. Almost everyone inside was busily absorbed in a chess or Scrabble game. At each table, the players were entirely focused on moving pawns and completing word--the OPain' was merely an afterthought. I asked one customer whether or not a chess club was meeting there tonight, and he replied, "No, this isn't high school, you know." Well, I guess I didn't know very much about chess. As far as I know, chess and Scrabble do not exist at Duke, and if they do, games are played in hidden nooks and crannies, in Round Table Dormitory, or at secret faculty meetings--probably because neither chess nor Scrabble transitions very well into a drinking game.

Humbled by the chess crowd, I was excited when a friend recommended going to John Harvard's, a popular campus bar. Thinking of the Hideaway, I thought this excursion might make me feel more at home, put me in touch with something more like campus life at Duke. It was exam week, but apparently people were still going to go to John Harvard's. I expected it to be packed. Around Duke exam week, every night you could find a party. From James Joyce to Mugshots to the Hideaway, students still went out in droves. People would get stressed before a big exam and stay in the library just as long as their Harvard counterparts, but if a two- or three-day break came along in their schedules, out they would be.

When we got to John Harvard's, there were people there, but oddly enough, they were ordering food. This must be the wrong place. The walls were paneled in--was that mahogany? And, wait a minute, what were waiters doing here? This is a campus bar? I looked around, not sure whether I was in a bar or at church. All along one wall were stained glass windows with pictures of saints. Saints? I made out a stained glass Richard Nixon saint and an Ed Sullivan saint, among others. The former Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity members would've had a field day getting rid of those windows. Round paintings hung from the walls. Had the members of the Porcellian Club, one of Harvard's "finals clubs," perhaps snatched them or something?

When we went to the Porcellian afterward, the people there didn't seem to be the sign-snatching types. Or at least we'd never know. Whereas at Duke, often more girls than boys infest a fraternity section or mixer late at night, at the Porcellian, girls were restricted to the downstairs hallway--only members were allowed to set foot on the other five floors. After hanging around for about a half-hour or so, I left with some friends. We ran into some students on their way home, some back from Cambridge, most others from the library. One was complaining about a Phish exam he had the next day.

"Wow, that's so cool," I said.

"We don't have classes like that at Duke," added my roommate.

"Cool? Why?" asked the student.

"I don't know, it just sounds like such a great class. An easy A."

"Phish are the most boring creatures ever. Hardly an easy A."

My roommate and I looked at each other, and I realized he wasn't talking about Phish, the band, but instead, fish the fish, as in that branch of zoology known as ichthyology. We knew it was time to head back to the land of beer pong and quarters.

Alexandra Wolfe is a Trinity senior and former arts editor of Recess.