Seniors
October 2007
OCTOBER 2007: Drew G. Faust waves at the crowd gathered for her inauguration ceremony on October 12, 2007. Faust, Harvard’s 28th president, is the first woman to lead the University.
Sexuality
Respondents were asked how they identified themselves at the beginning and end of college. The number of students identifying as gay, questioning, and other at the end of college has stayed relatively flat compared to last year’s data, while the number of respondents identifying as bisexual has decreased slightly.
Base Salary
The proportion of respondents whose salaries will exceed $50,000 a year next year has increased by 41 percent year-over-year.
Drug Use (Hard, e.g. cocaine, heroin)
Over one-third of respondents reported using marijuana with some frequency. Use of hard drugs and study drugs is far less common, with well over 90 percent of respondents self-reporting as non-users.
Drug Use (Study, e.g. Adderall, Ritalin)
Over one-third of respondents reported using marijuana with some frequency. Use of hard drugs and study drugs is far less common, with well over 90 percent of respondents self-reporting as non-users.
Drug Use (Pot)
Over one-third of respondents reported using marijuana with some frequency. Use of hard drugs and study drugs is far less common, with well over 90 percent of respondents self-reporting as non-users.
House Satisfaction
Overall, Harvard students were very satisfied with Harvard’s housing system, with Pfoho and Currier ranking highest among the 12 Houses by proportion of residents who were satisfied with their House life experiences. House satisfaction results in this particular survey should be taken with a grain of salt, as the margin of error increases substantially when responses are broken down by House.
Sex and Dating
Both male and female respondents reported a median of two sexual partners and two dating partners during their time at Harvard. A substantially greater proportion of male respondents reported having had five or more sexual partners during their time at Harvard, but the distribution of the number of dating partners is similar among males and females.
Finding Work
There remains a large gap between what students will do next year and what they want to do. The crimson boxes are what students are doing but would rather not do, while the blue boxes indicate fields that students would like to pursue if salary were not a factor. The steepness of the lines between the two sides shows the extent of the disconnect.
Work or Grad School?
The number of students seeking full-time employment rose from 2010, as well as the number planning on going to graduate school. The proportion working in finance and consulting has stayed relatively flat.
Where Will They Go?
WHERE IN THE WORLD WILL YOUR CLASSMATES BE? CLOSE BY: Roughly 43 percent of senior class survey respondents said that they would be living in either Boston or New York next year. With another 6.9 percent living in the nation’s capital and 4.4 percent living elsewhere in the Northeast, over half of the class is anticipating living within 500 miles of Cambridge, Mass. HOTEL CALIFORNIA: Over one-tenth of the class plans on heading to The Golden State after receiving their diplomas. Roughly another tenth plans on moving to the South and Midwest. ABROAD: Almost 20 percent of survey respondents say they will be living outside the United States next year, with nearly half of those individuals planning on heading to Europe.
Describe Your Harvard Experience in One Word
The Harvard experience in one word, collected from responses made by members of the Class of 2011 who took The Harvard Crimson’s annual senior survey.
Driving into the Open Future
In the year that has passed since I turned in the key to my Adams House suite, I have lived in three different states, driven across the country one and a half times, racked up several thousand frequent flier miles, and slept nearly as many nights on an air mattress as I have in a normal bed.
