Editor's Note

Dear Reader, This time of year is a bit confusing. Temperatures are in the 40s or 50s and the sun is setting at 4:30, but beautiful fall foliage is still around. Students are registering for next semester’s classes while doing midterms for our current classes. We have piles of work to do, but it’s basically Thanksgiving Break and we take a day or two off to go to New Haven, only to lose The Game… But The Game isn’t the only way Yale is ahead of Harvard. In this week’s scrut, NHS and EJS write about Harvard’s undergraduate class size has stayed the same in recent years, while Yale and many other Ivies have expanded. But for people invested in Harvard’s elitism, though, this might be a win — after all, isn’t Harvard’s exclusivity what makes it Harvard? Read the scrut to learn more about why Harvard’s plans for class expansion fell through and ideas that people have for making Harvard more accessible. This week, FM brings you yet another map, but this time we didn’t just choose locations. We chose vibes. We chose states of being. We chose 15 liminal spaces, places of in-between. GRW and CPRJ write about the Harvard Study of Adult Development whose results have received much attention for finding that forming deep relationships is the key to a happy life. However, some of the data used by the study is connected to scientific racism and eugenics. AEP and MTB interview international students at Harvard about how their concentration choices were affected by the STEM Optional Practical Training extension program, which allows international students studying in the U.S. to extend their visas for an additional 2 years if they study a STEM field. ASA and ETS talk to Brooks B. Lambert-Sluder ’05, who oversees the PAF program, about the value of having a PAF, which he did not have as an undergrad, and how he helped build the program since. MVE makes a triumphant return to FM to write about the Harvard Bicycle Club, a group of men who rode penny farthings together, occasionally raced, and held elaborate club dinners. In this week’s 15Q, HD interviews Jonathan Zittrain on the regulation of AI, his work with the Applied Media lab, and the future of the Internet. In her endpaper HWD writes about the joys and challenges of being a cowboy at Deep Springs, and her subsequent transition to being a Harvard student in Cambridge, Mass. Thank you to SWF for becoming FM’s resident cartographer and making us some beautiful maps. To SS, SET, SCS, MHS, MQ, JH, and JJG, thank you for being the best maestro team anyone could ask for! Special thanks to LJPE, HL, SS, SCS, MHS, AZ, and, of course, SET for our most drop-dead gorgeous glossy yet and for allowing us to finish proofing in record time. Thank you to BLK and MX for all the help you give us, proofing and beyond. AHL, this week we had some of our lasts — our last normal writers meeting, our last maestro, and there are still more lasts to come. It was bittersweet. I’m gonna save the long sappy comment for my last closeout, so for now I’ll just say thank you for being such a brilliant, dependable co-chair, and for making this job much more fun. Now just to try and savor these last few weeks … and plan our retirement party. FM Love, IYG & AHL