Harvard uni life

I'm having flashbacks to my uni days.

With summer officially over, it's back to school for uni students across North America.  

It seems everywhere I go I'm running into packs from fraternities and sororities hitting the town and celebrating.

Today, I'm visiting Boston's esteemed Harvard University, where students are also shuffling back for another year.

John Harvard Statue getting a clean for the new academic year

Despite its grand buildings, leafy courtyards and centuries of history, I'm finding Harvard surprisingly ordinary... in a good way.

It seems even attending one of the Ivy League universities doesn't negate the need for students to do all the usual, boring, start-of-term activities: moving into accommodation, buying books, and finding lecture theatres.

These are the student rituals that are the same all over the world, no matter where you are.

There are even pop-up information tents in Harvard Yard where "older" students, presumably with names like Amber, Brock and Chontell, provide guiding smiles and information in loud, perky voices.

Given the annual cost of Harvard's tuition, room, board and fees is reportedly approaching $60,000, it's probably no surprise to find a temporary second-hand furniture stall in one of the uni's squares.

Here Harvard reveals its great fondness for futons.

Fold-out futons are big at Harvard

Students can also snap up a bargain-priced ironing board, laundry basket and lots of other things they've never had to use before.

Second-hand student supplies

Of course, wandering around Harvard I'm reminded that some things have changed since my first year at uni.

While I had my assignments loaded on a 3.5" floppy disk and was forever waiting for one of the communal desktop computers to become available, these students are lounging with their Macbooks on the grass in Harvard Yard, uploading their files to the "cloud" thanks to the uni's wifi.

Harvard Yard

But I don't envy these students.  Apart from facing the pressure to do well having secured a place at pricey Harvard, they also have to content with hordes of tourists (like me) meandering through their campus each day.

Imagine running late for an exam only to have to navigate around camera-toting tour groups.

It's no wonder there is a highly visible presence by the Harvard University Police; presumably there not only to keep the tourists at bay, but also track down late library books and administer caffeine and sugar to students suffering nervous breakdowns during exam times.

Harvard University Police - they know you've got overdue library books

Over at the nearby MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), there's less of a feeling that the "eyes of history" are tracking your every move.

In contrast to Harvard, they've adopted a more modern approach to their campus with high-rise buildings and the eye-catching Ray and Maria Stata Centre.

MIT's Stata Centre

A jumble of brick, metal and glass, not surprisingly this building is the home of the electrical engineering and computer science department.

It's funky and colourful, but I'm guessing it's unconventional layout makes it just that little more difficult for the Ambers, Brocks and Chontells of the world to orientate the new students.

The never-ending Freedom Trail

There's a steady stream of people following a 4km red-brick path through the streets of Boston.

Welcome to The Freedom Trail - the city's pedestrian track that passes 16 locations deemed significant to the history of the United States.  

Boston's Old State House - that balcony was where the US Declaration of Independence was read for the first time

While I'm familiar with the broad overview of US history, I suspect some of the graveyards, churches, buildings, statues and even a ship mean more to Americans who have lived and breathed their country's history since birth.

Still, even a foreigner like myself can appreciate the events in Boston that led to the US Declaration of Independence and some of the first sparks of the anti-slavery movement.

However, one of the most surprising and interesting finds along the Freedom Trail is the New England Holocaust Memorial.

The New England Holocaust Memorial

It's striking as it is six tall glass columns - each one representing a major concentration camp -  made even more evocative with a continual flow of steam rising up through them.

One of the six columns

Each column attributed to a major concentration camp

Y

You can walk through the glass columns and note the six million numbers engraved onto the glass - each representing the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust.

The Boston connection?  Well, that's best explained by this eloquent inscription.

Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis created a regime of hate and victimisation in Germany that eventually consumed most of Europe.  Driven by racists beliefs, they killed as many as 11 million men, women and children in their quest to dominate Europe and create a "pure and superior" race. 

The Nazis singled out the Jews for total extermination - their very existence to be erased from history and memory.  Before their defeat in 1945, the Nazi regime murdered 6 million Jews - more than half of Europe's Jewish population.

Those who have perished have been silenced forever.  Those who witnessed and survived the horrors carry with them the burden of memory.  Through their voices, we seek to comprehend the acts of inhumanity that can stem from seeds of prejudice.

To remember their suffering is to recognise the danger and evil that are possible whenever one group persecutes another.  As you walk this Freedom Trail, pause here to reflect on the consequences of a world in which there is no freedom - a world in which basic human rights are not protected.  And know that wherever prejudice, discrimination and victimisation are tolerated, evil like the Holocaust can happen again.