4-5:30 p.m.: Freshman football introductory meeting. It's a frightening experience when 100 of your fellow classmates show up for this meeting. But even more scary is that freshman coach Chet O'Neil probably already had his starting eleven picked out for both offence and defense. Nobody is looking--why don't you hang up the spikes before you spend the whole fall on the sidelines? However, if you have aspirations of sitting on the varsity bench one day, you must start gathering splinters this season.
7:45: Reception for new Harvard and Radcliffe students in Sanders Theater. Your chance to meet Presidents Derek Bok and Matina Horner. Savor these glimpses--they may be your last of them until your Commencement.
9:30: Beer.
THURSDAY, September 18:
2-4:30 p.m.: Advising on Science Courses and Placement. A must for pre-meds, this meeting is one of several that are guaranteed to psycheout the unwary. Don't be misled by fellow students urging you to take what sounds like difficult chemistry courses. After you sign up, they'll drop out and coast through Natural Science chem.
2-4 p.m.: Institute of Politics panel. For those who haven't purged themselves of student government, the Institute of Politics may be a good outlet. The place is full of people bound for Washington, summer or otherwise.
4:30-5:30 p.m.: Coffee hour with Bernard Bailyn. Actually, this meeting has potential. Once again, if you are willing to brave the onslaught of people who think they know more about the American Revolution than Bailyn, you may be able to find out why some groups are paying upwards of $1000 a night to hear this man pontificate. He's very topical with the Bicentennial crowds.
5:30 p.m.: Picnic at the Radcliffe Yard. Another casual get-together annually spoiled by pretensions. Aside from avoiding those people who refuse to let the topic of conversation stray beyond the recently read German translation of Camus, you now must contend with the group of Wellesley women carted in to appease the males. The beginning of open exploitation season for women at Harvard.
SATURDAY, September 20:
Mixer: You've made it through the week, and then this had to happen. It may be a real rite de passage, but usually it just sends freshmen back to their rooms to write letters to girl and boy friends back home. The mixer is much like renting a room for your senior prom and finding out when you walk in that 12 other schools have also booked the hall that night. Go, if only to give you something to talk about for the next ten weeks.
MONDAY, September 22:
Classes begin--and with them comes not only the end of freshman week but a lot of much colder freshmen, already entrenched in camps of friends and ready for the winter. Doors propped open all week are now shut, and your seven-day license to say and do what you want is revoked. Coolest people move in today