You're Here. Now What?

As first-years, you're probably well-schooled by now in the Three Questions ("What's your name? What dorm are you in? Where are you from?") Hopefully you met more people this Labor Day weekend than in any prior three-day period, and remembered enough about essay-writing and algebra to get through those early placement tests.

But a warning to even the most intrepid socializers and test-takers: It does get harder from here. As classes, jobs and extracurriculars begin to sap your time, all the fun of this week will seem a distant memory (which means you should, of course, enjoy the present all the more).

Looking ahead, our No. 1 piece of advice is simple: Keep getting advice from anyone and everyone around you--your proctor, your prefects, your upperclass friends, people you meet in your extracurriculars. Everyone's been in your shoes and everyone's got a helpful hint on thriving--or at least surviving--at Harvard. Remember, it can never hurt to ask.

More concretely, as we head into shopping week, try not to limit your choices ahead of time. Shopping week is one of the most student-friendly and potentially useful aspects of academic life at Harvard. But that's only true if you keep an open mind and actually take the time to look at lots of classes. Feel free to drop by a class just to pick up a syllabus or catch a few words from a famous professor--nobody cares if you don't stay long.

Read your CUE guide carefully and thoroughly. It's the best way to balance all the subjective comments you'll be hearing with some hard customer satisfaction numbers from former students.

Finally, on a different note, keep the approachability of Orientation Week going as long as possible. Right now, you won't be seen as strange if you sidle up to a random first-year in Annenberg over lunch and strike up a conversation. But naturally, at some point--in our experience, after six to eight weeks--that will become a bit odd. You'll have your friends, maybe even your table, and those new meetings will become all too rare.

Now is your chance to meet hundreds of intelligent, interesting people with next to no effort. It's a chance you may never have again in your life. Don't waste it.