The one thing that shocked me about Harvard 哈佛讓我最震驚的一點

04-18

博客解讀：

這篇博客的作者是在哈佛大學就讀的華裔女生Nian。我們問她「哈佛大學讓你最震驚的一點是什麼」，她給了我們非常幽默卻又無比真實的回答。

在就讀哈佛以前，我已經準備好會遇到很多富有的同學。但是我沒有意料到的是幾乎每個同學都那麼富有。其中一個現象就是他們人手一件#加拿大鵝#。為了融入我也想買一件，但是看到一千刀的價格我卻步了。這是波士頓，不是北極圈好么！我三十美金的大衣就搞定了。。。

作為美國人，Nian發現自己也無法適應和融入哈佛的生活。雖然其他學生並沒有刻意排外，但是經濟上的差距註定讓他們沒法一起玩耍。

Something that surprised me about Harvard was how wealthy everyone was. Most of the time, low-income students simply don』t have the resources to get into a school like Harvard. Harvard, and other top universities, are overwhelmingly filled with students from wealthy backgrounds. This is due to the fact that grades and test scores correlate with wealth, and also due to the fact that these schools employ legacy policies that favor the children of alumni.

I was prepared to meet a lot of rich people at Harvard, but what really surprised me was how everyone was rich. When winter arrived, I noticed a lot of people wore Canada Goose jackets. It seemed like every single person at school owned one of those parkas. And they did look really nice and warm. I wanted to fit in, so I went online and tried to buy one. That』s when I realized that they cost $800-$1,000. I was shocked. I could not imagine having that much money to spend on a jacket. That was the price of a MacBook, for crying out loud! Or an international vacation. I could think a million things that I could spend that money on.

And yet, every single person at my school was able to spend that considerable sum of money on a plain black parka. Yes, they』re warm, but they』re not that warm. It』s Boston, not the Arctic Circle. I have a $30 parka from Primark that gets the job done. I heard so many stories from people about how they lost their Canada Goose jacket at a frat party. This would happen basically every weekend. But they didn』t even really seem to care. They cared more about the fact that their university ID was in the pocket, and they were annoyed about having to go get a new ID card printed. They didn』t even seem to care that they lost an $800 jacket. That really shocked me.

And people are really not aware of how wealthy they are. I』d meet students who lived off-campus in beautiful and expensive apartments in Boston, and they』d assure me that they weren』t rich. I』d meet people who would talk about being 「broke」 or coming from a 「middle class family」 or they』d talk disparagingly about 「all the rich kids」 at Harvard, but then later I』d find out that their father is the CEO of a major company, or they own a yacht, or they have a vacation home in France. I』d meet people who would say utterly absurd and out-of-touch things like, 「I never realized that families 『summer』 in the same place every year. My family goes to Europe and explores new countries in the summer. Isn』t that more normal?」 I was so shocked. My family never 「summered」 anywhere. Our summers were spent at home, and I usually went to summer school or worked.

The reality is that a lot of people at prestigious schools like Harvard are extremely out-of-touch with the economic reality of the world, and they think that having a yearly income of $100,000 makes them 「middle-class.」 It took a lot of getting used to. Truth be told, I never really got used to it. People don』t go out of their way to make you feel bad for being low-income, but you just find yourself excluded from a lot of activities. For example, this spring break a bunch of my friends were going to Cancun. They told me that they spent $1,000 on the trip. I simply wouldn』t be able to afford to go on a trip like that. And it』s also little things, like the ubiquity of Canada Goose jackets and Vineyard Vines and J. Crew and Lilly Pulitzer and Cartier bracelets and all of these extremely expensive clothes and jewelry that people wear with such casual indifference that you can』t help but feel a little uncomfortable and a little excluded.

Nian Hu is a college mentor & content creator @Offers Temple Inc. She is a senior student studying Government at Harvard College.

Nian是OT的導師和內容創作者。她在哈佛大學學習政治。