Brain Food

As Harvard’s inaugural advising week wraps up, concentration-hopping freshmen may have noticed a trend among departments starving for concentrators (and attention). In fact, with East Asian Studies doling out sushi, Computer Sciences offering ice cream, and various concentrations stuffing prospects with stuffed-crust pizza, it’s pretty obvious that intellectual curiosity wasn’t the only thing these desperate departments were catering to. Given the fixation with food, FM’s nutrition experts created a concentration-guide pyramid to help students make healthy choices.



Chosen sparingly—Endangered concentrations (where fats, oils and sweets go)

• Folklore and Mythology

• Women, Gender and Sexuality

• Special Concentrations (you really are special)

• Music

• Statistics (less than 1% of Harvard students seem to care)

Requires heavy rationalization—just like those 2 pints of Ben & Jerry’s a day

(where dairy goes)

• Any Humanities

• Classics

• Philosophy

For the cultural omnivore

(where meats go)

• Social Studies (eclectic honors within the gates; to everyone else, 7th grade all over again)

• Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (kosher and halal)

• Social Anthropology

These just sound cool—like kumquats and cherimoya (where fruits go)

• Astronomy and Astrophysics (rocket science is badass)

• Organismic and Evolutionary Biology

• Romance Languages and Literatures (learn how to serenade that special someone in several sonorous tongues)

This would sound useful if you went somewhere else (where vegetables go)

• Computer Science

• Engineering Sciences

Staples (where grains go)

• Economics (welcome to I-banking)

• Psychology (premeds and athletes rejoice!)

• Government (like the ideal mate, flexible and low-maintenance)