The Radcliffe College application form asked me to rank order my top three choices of field to major in.
Intending to eventually write the Great American Novel, my knee-jerk reaction was to list "English" at the top (I think the Harvard department's full name was "English and American Literature").
On calmer reflection, I realized that it was hard for me, or perhaps for anyone from my high school, to stand out in the humanities.
For one thing, New York City was then on the verge of bankruptcy and the public schools were in dire financial straits. This led to larger class sizes, which made the teachers reluctant to assign or grade lengthy papers. One of my English teachers resorted to giving us multiple choice computer-graded exams instead of essay questions.
For another, the school's principal was a biology teacher who was rumored to value the sciences more than the humanities in that post-Sputnik era. The school gave us lots of opportunities (such as a science honors program) to excel in the sciences, but not in English or history.
I guessed that potential English majors were not in short supply in the Radcliffe applicant pool of the mid-1970s, while science majors would be rarer. Clearly, it would be easier to sell myself as a scientist than as a writer. Once I got in, I could major in whatever I wanted.
Though I felt awful about deceiving the admissions office, I listed my top three choices as math, physics, and chemistry. I highlighted my interest and accomplishments in math, and played down my love to write. But I planned to major in English if I actually got in.
Unfortunately, I was a good enough writer that I not only convinced the admissions committee that I should be a math major, I also convinced myself. By the time I got there, I planned to major in math.
However, in my first year I took a math course that was too advanced for me. I got discouraged, and thought about bailing out of math.
We were supposed to declare our majors (or "concentrations", in Harvard lingo) early in sophomore year.
I couldn't go back to my idea of majoring in English, since I read too slowly to handle the workload (and I enjoyed savoring books too much to want to read them faster).
What I really wanted to major in was Folklore and Mythology. While my first thought was "what a cool subject," my second thought was, "but I can't justify spending my parents' hard-earned money on a degree in something that sounds so frivolous." (My parents had assumed, probably incorrectly, that applying for financial aid would lessen my chances of getting in, so I didn't apply for financial aid and my parents took out loans to pay for my college education.)
I had always loved Greek and Roman mythology. Classics seemed like a respectable major, and I wondered whether I should choose it.
In my freshman year I took "The Great Age of Athens" from the legendary John Finley, who was teaching the course for the last time. Sitting in Sanders Theater, as a witness to the end of Harvard's Great Age of John Finley, I was overwhelmed by a sense of history. (Do read his obituary to the end.)
I eventually followed that up with courses by Albert Lord (another Harvard legend, known for "The Singer of Tales") and Gregory Nagy (a charismatic Classics professor of the next generation; in my notes from the last lecture of the course, I quote Nagy as saying, "Do Read Singer of Tales!! carefully. (He's tricky, subtle.) People tend to downplay Lord. You shouldn't.").
There was one major problem in choosing Classics as my concentration. I didn't know any Greek or Latin. Those languages weren't taught at my public school. I would be way behind the preppy Classics majors who took Greek and Latin in high school.
In my sophomore year, I went to the first lecture or two of beginning Greek, taught by Nagy. While students weren't literally hanging from the rafters, the room was packed so full with hundreds of students that there were worries that the fire marshal might limit enrollment. I sat on the floor, squashed between other eager students. Those who couldn't push their way into the room could try to listen from the hallway. Perhaps I should take Latin first.
But beginning Latin was taught by grad students, and the one I tried was dry and boring.
Since Nagy's Greek class met at the same time as a math class I wanted to take, I decided to postpone Greek and Latin. This seemed to finalize the decision about my field of study, until a Teaching Assistant in one of the classics courses tried to change my mind.
I didn't know what to make of his handwritten comments on the papers I wrote for the course. For example, at the end of my first assignment he wrote:
Your paper surpasses my ability to praise it. Of course you don't get everything, but your intelligence, imagination, & the clarity of your writing (in general) make your work a pleasure to read. I hope my comments have been helpful as well as simply effusive in their admiration --- but I can only aspire to be a teaching assistant worthy of such a fine student.
and on the last homework:
Your sensitivity to "Homer" & co. is, in my opinion, a good deal greater than that of most classicists --- which must be its own reward. I am particularly gratified to see that the section meetings were of some use to you. You really owe it to yourself to learn some Greek --- which you could certainly handle. Start with Homer, perhaps (I have enough reference books and personal notes to make it all a breeze for you). Well, think about it as a possibility for the future, & be sure to let me try to convince you with details, if you are at all interested.
Should I believe him? The TA offered to give me free private tutoring in Greek. Should I take him up on that, or were there risks in doing so?
I told a friend about the TA's offer, and showed her his comments on my writing. She said, "Alice, you know what this means. He's hitting on you. No, you don't take him up on his offer!"
At Harvard in the 1970s, it was common enough for male TAs and professors to hit on female students, that dodging the advances of our instructors was something many of us learned to do automatically and subconsciously. (Perhaps less common, though still observed, were female students trying to seduce their professors.) I don't flatter myself that it was due to Radcliffe students being so attractive or desirable; it was just the scarcity of women among the students and faculty, at a university that was going coed at a snail's pace.
I took my friend's advice, and didn't learn Greek from my TA extracurricularly. I didn't see how my TA's effusive comments could be taken seriously; I didn't have that much confidence in my abilities and potential. Perhaps I should have. I eventually found out that the TA already had a girlfriend. Maybe he really was interested in my mind, after all.
One consequence of instructors hitting on students was that female students couldn't trust the advice and feedback their instructors gave them.
