"There is very little community here," writes London School of Economics student Cristopher I. Cowherd '00 in an e-mail message. "We're all so spread out that it becomes a chore to see friends."

Students studying in foreign cities say that adjusting to the social atmosphere abroad can demand an effort beyond that required by the close-knit community of American schools. Students at foreign schools are generally more independent of their Universities, socializing with friends they made before college.

But some students say these challenges opened their eyes to social opportunities that they wouldn't have found in Cambridge. At Oxford, for example, students in study abroad programs come from schools all over the U.S.

They "form a uniquely diverse sort of community united by a common experience," Hicks says.

"This is one of the things I would have missed most if I stayed at Harvard my junior year and interacted only with Harvard students, who seem to increasingly homogenize themselves into a sort of `Harvard student' mold as their college years go along," Hicks added.

Like Hicks, other students agreed that being abroad highlighted some of the downsides of the Harvard community.

"A lot of things that can be trivialized in the outside world are made to be a big deal at Harvard, such as academics or social problems, because we're in such a tight community," says Matthew S. Trent '00, who spent the fall studying in Amsterdam.

Since few Harvard students study abroad, students interviewed say the campus at large does not embrace the value of their foreign experiences. This creates a self-sustaining phenomenon--fewer students feel the need to leave, and ever fewer feel comfortable doing so.

"The main thing that I wish were different," Beck says, "was that there were so few people that went away. I have a lot of friends at other schools where a lot of people go away, and it's a much more common experience."

On the Outside, Looking In

One of the most compelling aspects of their time abroad was the way it changed their perception of Harvard, many students found.

"Studying this year in England has refreshed a lot of my outlook on Harvard, and has helped me assess our college's faults and virtues in a much more cogent, lucid way than if I had gotten progressively mired in Harvard for all of my four years," Hicks says.

Not only did Hicks and other students find that studying abroad catalyzed their personal re-examination of Harvard but they also came face to face with other people's perceptions of Harvard, and of Americans more generally.

"Spaniards have all heard of Harvard, and some say, `Oh, that's a really good school' or `You must be really smart,'" says Sarah H. Winkeller '00, who's spending the spring term studying at the Universidad de Sevilla.

"One guy, after finding out I went to Harvard, asked me to do his homework. When I said no, he said, `Come on, you must be so smart. You need to share the wealth,' and did not stop pestering me for about four days, when he finally realized I was not going to do his homework," Winkeller says.