Every reaction you get when you tell someone you go to Harvard

So, here you are. Home for break, once again. You’ve tackled the immediate separation anxiety from your dorm room mattress pad and from the constant chatter from your beloved roommates. You are marveling at how much space is in your shower and what it feels like to have substantial water pressure again. Home cooking has refreshed your taste buds but left you realizing that you might have to begin making a few meals for yourself again. All in all, you are trying to readjust to life back home.

One of the earliest steps of this process is to reunite with your friends. You are all thankful to be suffering the drudgeries of home together and a promising treatment to your maladies is a party tomorrow night. “Yaaaaaaas, let’s goooo,” you all exclaim as the party invitee still stares excitedly at her phone.

Flash forward to this party. Imagine you are in the middle of a strange living room (or maybe a dirty basement, if you are all feeling really high school), probably admiring the wood paneling or the alignment of picture frames on the mantel behind the teeming college-aged masses. You’re drinking something unappetizing out of a red cup and talking to old friends when suddenly you spot it.

The greatest source of anxiety in your life back home. Standing among 30 or 40 of your old classmates who you know and love (and who know and love you enough to not pester you about your life) are the mutual friends or even worse, the strangers. They are speaking to your best friend who you unfortunately catch the eye of at this very moment and you see the familiar sparkle in her green iris that says “Ooooooh let’s try to make even more friendship happen.”

Your friend and her companions walk over and you flush with anxiety about the seemingly single most important fact of your entire being: you go to Harvard. Somehow, someway, this fact is about to come up. You may get 20 minutes into the conversation and grasp at the hope that this individual will not ask but it will sneak in there at some point. And in the 30 seconds preceeding this admission, you are about to meet one of seven personalities who come to terms with this idea in his or her own, special way.

The Breezer

The Breezer is the individual who glosses over your school name and carries on the conversation as it was already progressing. In this case, either you do not want to make the name of my school a conversation topic or you simply do not care. Either way, you, my friend, are incredible. To put this plainly, a very small percentage of Ivy League students, or students of other so called “top-tier” schools, embody the typical egotism that people expect us to have. (In fact, I personally hold the opinion that this established hierarchy of school systems is transparent: the quality of an education does not depend on the brand name of a school more than it depends on the diligence of the student and the fit of that school for each individual student. As a proud New Yorker, I rant about my faith in the SUNY system on an almost weekly basis because the SUNYs can supply a great education for a much more reasonable cost. Also shout out to Will Hunting for explaining that knowledge can be gained from simply reading at the library if you are dedicated enough.)

Speaking as a student of Harvard more specifically than a student of the Ivy League education system, we do not want others to perceive us as elitist or shallow simply because we love Harvard and felt that this school was right for us. When you breeze over the name of our school, you make us feel like real, typical college students. I am one with you and you are one with me. We both have very little idea of what we are doing here and we are trying to stumble through life with smiles on our faces… but The Breezer allows us to do so together.

The Hopeful Applicant

This individual wants to know the ins and outs of the entire application process. He wants you to fill him on the tricks and tips on how to get in… Because, you know, applying to college is not about presenting your true image but about tricking people into thinking you’re acceptable. You honestly have no idea how to respond to this individual because of two factors: a) you did not actually use any tricks or strategies to getting in and/or b) you’re done with the college process in its entirety, including tutoring others on how to do it.

The Doubter

The Doubter is the person who just cannot simply get over the fact that you “really go to Harvard?!” He will ask you this question at least three times, assumably to see that if by the fourth time you say “Just kidding,” My favorite subcategory of The Doubter breed is the ones who refer to my hair as a seemingly valid reason to question my attendance at Harvard. Yes, I am blonde…I am also irrationally afraid of blueberries and I wear Vans. (This brings up another point – wearing clothing such as ripped jeans, Vans or any of the like do not discredit you from attending Harvard. I have seen more purple hair and longboards on my campus than I have elsewhere.) How have we all not surmounted the idea that blondes can be smart? Why are you still making this joke? Doubting my ability to be accepted and matriculate at Harvard does not offend me but it begs the question of why you, Doubter, believe so faithfully in stereotypes and impossibilities.

The Self Deprecator

There is nothing more uncomfortable than having someone say “Jeez, and I thought my school was good,” or “Well, you go to Harvard so you must be (insert characteristic),” or anything of the like. Your school is amazing, dude. You are happy and living life. I am not throwing my school in your face: please do not make me feel like I am with these comments.

The Inquisitor

Yes, it was the first college. Yes, Mark Zuck went here (shortly). Yes, he and many others have dropped out. Yes, we do research. Yes, our statue is a lie. No, I do not know what half of the buildings are called. Our rooms are dirty and we do not have maid service. Yes, I am a regular college student who barely knows anything about her campus and is still figuring her life out.

The Challenger

The Challenger has this aggressive tendency to assume that every student of Harvard is ready for an intellectual debate. Surprisingly, we are not all stark social liberals or Republicans or ready to spew knowledge at any moment. Some of us do not have ideas on the legalization of marijuana or the details of each presidential candidate and those of us who are this politically charged are still on break and ready for an intellectual hiatus. I am sure you loved reading Tolstoy but I do not know what he was implying on page seventy eight of Anna Karenina and I am not willing to outline you a breakdown of the political climate Russia for the past several centuries.

The Super Aggressive Challenger

This category is really reserved for a single, most prominent reaction I had once received. Upon subtly mentioning I go to Harvard, I was unsuspectingly insulted based on this person’s assumption that I come from a family with an overwhelmingly large amount of wealth. In reality, I come from a lineage of immigrants who did not receive formal education past (maybe) high school. I do not breathe money, nor does the majority of Harvard students… and most of the students who do have wealth are wonderfully humble about it.

Of course, I do not enter social situations thinking the single most important aspect of anyone’s life is the source of my education. And I do not view the name of my school as wholly explanatory of who I am: however, the ugly truth is that to some people, it is explanatory of who I am, or who this individual perceives “me,” to be. I wish no one cared about the names of schools and we all lived in a world where we feel equal to one another but the reason I write this article is due to the fact that I have personally encountered these reactions in real life.

Being “Jackie,” rather than being “Harvard Girl,” is refreshing when you try your hardest to actively fight against the stereotypes that scar your beloved school.