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Home at Harvard | The Upperclass House System
As sophomores, students move from the Yard to one of the 12 Houses – small residential communities of 330 to 450 students within the larger University community. A broad mix of students and faculty makes each House a microcosm of the College; Harvard has no theme housing. Each House has its own dining hall, library, common rooms, rehearsal spaces, and other physical resources. Houses also provide students with a wide range of extracurricular programs.
A senior faculty member serves each House as a Master. Masters make each House a home by hosting frequent open houses in their private residences and by selecting an extensive staff of both resident and nonresident tutors and faculty fellows. Together, Masters and House staff set the tone for the House in its activities and in its functioning as a close-knit community within the context of a larger college and university. Tutors, representing many fields of study, provide counsel for students on academic matters, fellowships, and graduate school admission. Tutors also take initiative in organizing and participating in intellectual, cultural, and extracurricular activities in the House, such as discussion and language tables, as well as House sports, drama, music, art and community service activities. A 13th House offers a social and academic gathering place for students who elect to live off campus.
Students Speak: Listen to students talk about living in the House System at Harvard.
Traditions and Activities
With its central goal of forging a link between learning and living, the House system at Harvard cultivates an assortment of intellectual and cultural activities and traditions. Houses are places where learning occurs all the time, whether in the dining hall as students share a meal with teachers and visiting scholars, or in House tutorials and seminars, taken for degree credit. A large number of department tutorials and course sections meet in the Houses, allowing students to take meals with their professors and section leaders in the evenings, either before or after they have class. Each House also sponsors faculty and Senior Common Room dinners. These formal dinners give students the opportunity to invite professors, administrators, and teaching fellows to dine at their House, furthering the extension of intellectual life at the College.
Individual Houses also maintain unique academic and social traditions, from weekly discussion forums, film societies, dramatic groups, and productions to barbeques, weekly teas, and exam-time breaks with milk and cookies, or spring celebrations. Throughout the year, Masters' open houses are pleasant chances to socialize with the Masters and other members of the House.
Each House fields its own athletic teams in sports ranging from hockey to squash to ultimate Frisbee in the quest for the "Straus Cup," which is won annually by the House with the highest standing in intramural sports at the year's end. Freshmen also compete among first-year dorms in the same sports for the "Yard Cup." Each House has its own self-governing body, a House Committee, which organizes and sponsors many of the House activities described above, as well as administers neighborhood public-service programs.
Students with ideas and energy add greatly to the activities and traditions of the Houses. With the Masters, Tutors, and affiliated House members, they help to maintain the strong tie to the academic and social life of the College. But exactly how that is done and what springs up culturally and recreationally varies each year, based on the interests and efforts of the students who call their House a home.