According to this story in the current issue of Boston Magazine, there is quite a party going on in Allston at Harvard's Business School . As HBS is accepting younger students, wild keg parties and beer-pong tournaments (also known as Beirut) are described as common. The students there will soon be even younger, as a new HBS program, 2+2, will add several dozen 24 year olds to the mix.
"You look back at some nights and you could say it happened at the University of Florida or you could say it happened at Harvard Business School, " said a second-year HBS student told Boston Magazine . A recent grad described the scence as "a lot of these people are 26, 27, have half a million dollars in the bank, and are completely burned out from all the 90-hour workweeks. They really just want to have a good time."
This should give pause to residents and City officials considering Harvard's expansion plans that will bring HBS and other student housing closer to North Allston's residential neighborhoods. Harvard's Master Plan draft proposes 500,000 square feet for Harvard Business School academic and housing uses, 350,000 square feet of graduate student housing (590 beds), and 800,000 square feet of undergraduate housing. But Harvard proposes not a single unit of housing for non-student adults who teach or work at Harvard and might become more permanent members of the community.
Allston/Brighton is already dominated by residents in their 20's, who make up 45% of our population (compared with 23% for the entire city of Boston). As with other demographic segments like renter/owner, it is a question of finding a good balance and anticipating how changes will affect (positively and negatively) different groups of people.
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Please...my wife just graduated from HBS and comparing HBS to a huge school like Florida is ridiculous. They don't even compare to the undergrad parties at my tiny undergrad engineering college. There's a huge difference between a 19 or 20 year old underclassmen and a 24 year old HBS student (plus I think I met one 24 year old, most are at least 26 or 27).
ReplyDeleteDo they have some parties? Sure. Do they play beer pong? I'm sure some do, but the only time I played with HBS people was at the Bus Stop Pub on Western Ave.
More anti-Harvard scare-tactics.
Hi Nathan,
ReplyDeleteIf you don't like the HBS-Florida comparison, take it up with Brian Dutt (the HBS student who made the comparison), not me.
My point isn't that HBS students are bad, drunk, obnoxious people. My point is the huge impact of several hundred people in their teens and twentys (almost all of whom will leave when their few years of school are complete). How much or little some of these people drink is only a small part of the impact. It would be a very different story if Harvard wanted to be part of making a balanced community and create homes for people who are past their student years.
Here is some experts from the story from the HBS student paper mentioned in the Boston Magazine story. It is a "humor" piece, but usually things like this are only considered funny if there is some truth to them.
http://media.www.harbus.org/media/storage/paper343/news/2008/05/05/ViewpointsHumor/50.Reasons.Hbs.Is.Better.Than.Real.Life-3364437.shtml
-You can always find people to go drinking with on a Monday night
-You can always find people to go drinking with on a Tuesday night
-You can always find people to go drinking with on a Wednesday night
-You can always find people to go drinking with on a Thursday night
-You can turn up hung over every day for a week, and not only will you not get fired, people may not even notice
-Taking a ten hour flight to Munich for four days for Oktoberfest is considered perfectly reasonable