One of my most favorite days of the year is coming up: HOUSING DAY 2013. So of course, I thought I’d share in on the fun with all of you.

FIRST, THE BACKSTORY:

At Harvard, all freshmen are randomly assigned a freshmen dorm the summer prior to their first year. Most freshmen dorms are right in Harvard Yard with the exception being three dorm buildings– we call them the ‘Union dorms’– located a little bit farther away. Here’s just a few of them:

THEN in the middle of freshmen year, students choose up to 7 friends to “block” with and up to 8 more to “link” with. Blockmates are the people you essentially get to live with for the rest of your three years at Harvard and linkmates are close friends who are guaranteed to be placed in a house adjacent to yours…. which gets to…

THE HOUSES

There are 12 upperclassmen residential houses. There’s a lot of debate about which house is THE BEST HOUSE but rest assured they all have great qualities. The main distinction is whether you get a “river house”– Adams, Quincy, Lowell, Leverett, Mather, Dunster, Winthrop, Eliot, Kirkland– or a “quad” house– Currier, Cabot, and Pforzheimer. We “rival” and joke about which house is the best and which one’s the worst but really at the end of the day, these houses become your home at Harvard. You get to be a part of a smaller community right on campus and get to really know the people in your house. It’s one of the things I love about Harvard life.

Ok, so anyways: every blocking group gets randomly assigned to a house (think Harry Potter and the sorting hat 😉 AND then…

Here’s just one of the houses: Cabot House in the Quad

ON HOUSING DAY

All your blockmates gather in one central room and early in the morning a crowd of people from your new house come storming in to tell you which house you got. It’s pretty much like Christmas morning. At least that’s what I think.

Flashback: my housing day last year when all my roomies found out we got MATHER HOUSE! I’m telling you, it was like Christmas morning 🙂 

BUT BEFORE THAT

We rev up all the house pride here on campus with each house releasing it’s own little video about why their house is the best house. Here’s some of my favorites from this year for Mather, Lowell, and Adams!

Not to mention the Crimson releases it’s highly anticipating House Ranking List.

It’s all great fun amidst midterm week and a great chance to bring the Harvard community together. And just for the record, Mather House is the best house. Just so you know 😉

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