Dunster House
As part of our Housing Market series, we'll be posting reviews and rankings for each of Harvard's 12 residential Houses over the next few days. Click here to read more about our project.
So it’s Housing Day and you just found out you got into Dunster. Though some of your friends may shoot you pitying glances and offer you patronizing words of sympathy, fear not! Dunster’s negative reputation is merely a front to keep the joys of this red-towered House a secret for the worthy only.
Dining Hall: Let’s be serious. Dunster has the best House dining hall. The dark wood panels, lighted chandeliers, big windows, and House Master portraits adorning the beautiful Dunster dining hall is the closest you will get to re-living the grandeur of Annenberg Hall. Even better, Dunster avoids all the things you hated about Annenberg: the staff is exceptionally friendly, the serving area is well-designed and spacious, and there are rarely long lines or limited seating. And there are no unwelcoming dining hall restrictions, so feel free to invite your friends!
As the uninformed rarely make the trek out to Dunster, the d-hall is always filled with familiar faces, and its role as a social hub doesn’t end there. You can always find fellow Meese working through the night on problem sets and papers with whom you can collaborate, commiserate, and procrastinate.
Score: +1000 for just being awesome
Common Spaces: The Dunster Grille is also a popular late-night hangout. Serving up a delicious array of unhealthy snacks seven nights a week, the Grille is an enjoyable and cheap way to fend off those late night munchies. The uber-friendly House Masters also hold frequent open houses and ice cream bashes, featuring home-made food and desserts, not to mention a kick-ass mango sorbet.
Dunster also has a library with secret rooms behind bookcases, a big TV room, a cardio room and a weight room (highly acclaimed by FlyBy!), multiple squash courts, a nice kitchen, and music practice rooms. Unlike some Houses such as Winthrop and Cabot, the underground tunnels connect all the entryways, meaning that you never have to go outside when Cambridge weather acts up (which, as you must know by now, it likes to do often). For the more temperate days in the fall and spring, the beautiful, open courtyard facing the river is a popular spot to work or relax.
Score: +20 for the Grille taking Board Plus and Crimson Cash, +50 for the free food from the Masters, -16 for the sophomore sixteen, +25 for the gorgeous courtyard, -15 for the bars in the library
Rooms: Dunster isn't exactly ideal in its rooming situation. Rooms can be small, and yes, you will probably be forced to live in a walk-through or force two beds into a bedroom at least once during your time here.
That being said, the housing is certainly not deserving of its widespread “Dumpster” reputation. N housing is almost guaranteed for sophomores, and the size and layout of rooms is, at the very least, on par with that of other Houses like Lowell and Winthrop.
Score: +15 for not having n-1 housing, -50 for cockroaches
House spirit: Whose House? D HAUS! Dunster makes up for its somewhat abominable reputation with a robust House culture. Our happy hours—with themes such as Space, the Cold War, and Anything but Clothes—blow those lukewarm stein clubs out of the water, even attracting members of other Houses with inferior social events. Unlike some other Houses, Dunster has a small and tight community—we love our Moose family!
Score: +50 for actually knowing your fellow House mates, +200 for drunken dancing at happy hours
Location: Dunster is admittedly one of the farther River Houses. An approximately eight- to ten-minute walk from the Yard means that your lazier friends might never come visit you. Still, you’re closer to most upperclassmen than those unfortunate Quadlings, and you might get a lovely River view from your own room. And once you get used to the fact that nothing will ever be as close as it was when you lived in the Yard, a five-minute walk to most of the other River Houses will seem like nothing.
This distance is ameliorated in part by the super convenient shuttle. When you have a 10 a.m. class in Northwest Labs during the nastiest sleet-rain-blizzard in February, you’ll thank the River Gods that you don’t live in some of the other River Houses, which are roughly equidistant to the Yard but sadly shuttle-less.
Score: -20 for losing friends (who probably didn’t care about you in the first place), +10 for additional exercise, +100 for shuttles, -5 for the addiction to Shuttleboy, -10 for the minor inconveniences when the shuttle isn’t running
Quirks: Be sure to come for the Goat Roast in the spring, a Dunster House tradition when the whole House turns out to literally roast a whole goat in the courtyard along with other things, including vegetarian options. Actually, the goat tastes pretty gross, but come for the other food, the picturesque courtyard, and the great company!
One example of our great House spirit is Blastfest, which was just instituted during the fall semester. Once a week, everyone plays the same song at the same time at max volume, flooding the courtyard with sonic enjoyment and drawing some Dunsterites into a cathartic dance-fest. Though the tradition has been temporarily put on hold, it is sure to return in the fall.
Our spring formal is called Beltane, a festival of fertility. We'll leave the rest to your imagination!
Being in Dunster builds character and teaches valuable life lessons. Dunster House pride is met regularly with pitying responses. But that’s life, isn’t it? Not everything that is good is properly recognized for its merits, and Dunster falls into that category. It’s okay—the knowledge of the awesomeness that other students don’t know of will be more than enough to sustain you through your short three years in this awesome House.
Score: -5 since it turns out goat tastes bad, +15 for the music that suits all tastes at Blastfest, +40 for Beltane “festivities,” +50 for character building
Committee Ranking: 10 out of 12. Solid.
Our Rankings So Far:
10. Dunster
11. Cabot
12. Winthrop
Photo by Keren E. Rohe '13, Crimson Staff Photographer