No problem! I have similar interests and will be taking my first Gov class this Fall (2L), which is pretty much my first opportunity. It's possible to do it 1L Spring, but very difficult (you only have 1 elective and I think it takes a special petition to get it to be an outside class). Like someone mentioned, you can only take a total of 10 or 12 credits (about 3 classes) at other H schools, and have to maintain a minimum load of law classes any given semester, but I still think it's a great perk of being at HLS that we can access the rest of the university.

I totally agree. 1L spring is pretty awesome. I wasn't expecting anything until 2L. Is there any way to petition for more courses if they're law-related? I guess if there's a lot of cross-registration that won't really be a problem. I want to make sure I can take one class 2L and 3L in phil/theory of law stuff.

I asked this on another thread, but thought I'd ask here too. I'm deciding between living in North or getting my own place off campus but very nearby. Benefits of living off campus include having more space and my own kitchen, but will I miss out on socializing and study groups if I'm not in a dorm?

People in the dorms seemed to do a lot better at branching out beyond their section. You won't miss out on study groups, most ppl in my study group lived off-campus. You won't miss out on forming a group of friends, again, most of mine live off-campus. Living off-campus, my socializing was more intentional--going out on Friday and Sat. nights and less hanging out in a hallway randomly on a Wednesday afternoon. But between class, lunches, dinners, and friday and sat. nights, I felt sufficiently socialized.

I'm deciding between possibly living at North Hall (if I can get a place) or Gropius dorms. Does anyone have any general recommendations... Also, can anyone tell me how the social life compares or differs between the two places. Thank you!

Has anyone here been an RA before?

asked and answered here viewtopic.php?f=4&t=165975&start=75

so took a look at the grocery stores near HLS and all of them appear to have mixed reviews (people complaining about high prices etc)...wheres a good place to get groceries...like a major chain preferably so they wont jack up prices

wouldnt mind going a bit farther out as long as its near a t stop

Shaw's is nice, and right next to Porter, one stop up. When the weather's nice it's just a long long walk away from anywhere the Harvard/Porter/Davis area.

Yes -- it varies heavily by professor, but feel free to shoot me any questions.


Good luck with that. For "cheap" groceries, the best bet in the (sort of) area is Market Basket, which is up on Somerville Avenue. Unfortunately, it is a little off the beaten track.

The Trader Joe's in Central has some good deals, but I'm generally quite underwhelmed with the freshness of TJ's produce, mostly because the majority comes all the way from Chile, I think.

Shaw's is fine and convenient, but it is quite expensive.

Re: groceries -- as mentioned above, anything close to the T tends to be sub par. If you're just concerned about survival and not picky about meats and produce, there are a handful of Shaw's/Star Markets near Porter and east of campus.

If you cook a lot, there are two decent chain stores in the cambridgeport area: The huge whole foods on river street and the TJ's on memorial drive. Neither is near a T stop, but there's probably a bus route that gets pretty close. I would just make friends with someone who has a car.

thanks yall

one more question..im gonna be living at terry terrace and apparently they have harvard internet there....does this mean its only hooked up and so i need to bring a router/ethernet cord...or does this mean the internet is fully set up already and so i dont have to bring anything?

Yeah, just echoing the other posters, if it's near a t-stop, then it's expensive. The stores understand that for people without cars, proximity to the T is important.

If you buy a lot of groceries at a time the answer is grocery delivery. There are many options better than Peapod that a lot of people use and it usually has a fair amount of coupons for free delivery.

Just to confirm this, because this is the sense I have at this point - it's pretty much impossible/unheard of to fail out of HLS, correct? From reading this thread it sounds like LP (which of course is a low pass) is the shittiest it realistically gets. Does anyone know anybody, or any second or thirdhand stories of anybody failing courses (or, more dramatically, leaving the school for academic reasons)?

I'm mostly just asking this out of morbid curiosity I guess.

More realistically though, I confess I'm a little intimidated about the fall. My undergrad was extremely uncompetitive both in setup/format and feel - I took a third of my classes pass/fail and the remaining courses were graded on a generous A/B/C scale. Maybe a bit concerned that this fall will be a headfirst dive into a peer group of brilliant and hardcore grinders with educational pedigrees about 100x more rigorous than mine.

How many of you current students have had at least one experience where you felt certain you were the slowest / most incompetent person in your class? I'm half expecting my experience this fall to be a series of these.

Im really anti-discussing grades so I dont know the particulars of anyone else's situation but I have never even heard a story of anyone failing. The only reason I am even somewhat sure that LPs exist is because I have heard from other people that they know of a person who got one(though I have never actually confirmed with anyone or heard a specific name).

You really shouldn't worry about sounding like an idiot in class because I doubt it has a strong correlation with grades. I pretty much stopped going/paying much attention to one of my classes spring semester because the prof was completely incompetent and I somehow ended up with an H in the class despite the fact that I most definitely was not one of the "smartest" in the subject. Really, all you can do is try your best on every exam. Everyone is so smart that the middle 70% or so of exams are fairly similar so it probably all comes down to whether you got some random thing that the prof thought was particularly important (or read the supplement that talked about it).

Being good at law school is kind of a different kind of "smart" than what you would typically recognize, so academic pedigree isn't all that important. People come from all different backgrounds and a person who dominated in economics or physics in undergrad might not necessarily excel on a law school exam. I took law school nowhere near as seriously as I should have and I made it through first year perfectly ok (though not remotely close to the top of the class).

I haven't heard of anybody failing a class or leaving for academic reasons, though I suppose it might exist. Some people incorrectly sometimes think others are leaving for academic reasons when there are other personal reasons (I know someone who left after finishing in the top 1/3, for instance). Can't say I ever felt like the slowest/most incompetent person in class. I don't think that feeling really means much, though.


I'm actually going to show my true gunner colors and say that it can be a good idea to talk in class. Not because of grades, but for references and recs. Obviously, don't be the annoying person who talks all the time, but both employers and *especially clerkships* would like to see that at least one prof can vouch for you. It doesn't do much good to have an H in a class if the prof doesn't remember you, and in a class of 80+ students, it's easy to be forgotten. Even with a DS...if the prof doesn't have much to say besides "this person wrote a great exam" (which is obvious, because you got a DS), then that's not so helpful. I actually decided to ask a prof for a reference in a class I got a P in--and the prof, who was happy to be a rec, noted that he/she was surprised I didn't do well on the exam, because my comments in class were so good, but figured that I'd eventually get the hang of how to write exams. The prof thought the comments in class were my 'true' ability, so I'm glad I took the time to make them. Don't stress if you say something stupid, though, you'll have many more classes to impress profs in.

I've heard (from not very authoritative sources) that professors need permission from someone (maybe the Dean?) to fail a student, and it the exam has to say something like, "[expletive] you awful professor youre mean" and nothing else (to which the Dean is supposed to say, "To be fair, you are kind of mean sometimes" before allowing the prof to fail you).

If you try at all, you're not going to fail out.

lol'd. Thanks for that.

Disagree about some of this, but only a little. There are LPs. The reason people don't hear about them is because people don't talk about them. One professor emailed his section that he gave out four LPs. I went over one of my exams with a professor, and he said he gave out several LPs.
Also, people do leave because of grades, although it is hard to tell whether it's because of bad grades, or super gunners who can't handle median. Not many people though - I know of one.

Are grades curved by section or do they take into account the whole 1L class? Also are these sections randomly determined or do they try and make every section as unique/diverse as possible?

Curved by individual class (though you take 7 of the 9 with your section). Dunno about the latter. You get weird clusters, so I'm thinking random.

It's hard to imagine a situation where this would make sense, especially since LIPP mitigates the risk of taking on additional debt.

I vaguely remember this question being asked before, either here or on Facebook, but I can't remember the answer--when were you first notified about your section number? The current Facebook group is just a mass of students, most of whom won't be in my section. It'd be much more interesting to figure out who I'll actually be taking classes with.

According to my emails, I found out on August 10. Orientation was August 27th? or so.