5 reasons to make the trek to the Harvard SEC
With a near-normal spring break on the horizon, many of us could use the extra adrenaline rush to power through midterms, assignments, and projects that professors always love to pile up before the break. So instead of hibernating in your room to grind out the last 50 pages of your 150+ page senior thesis or catching up on that LS1b lecture that you ignored because of that audacious Youtube prank, consider studying in the SEC! Yes, it’s the Science and Engineering Complex in Allston that I’m referring to.
You may ask, why the heck would I spend the precious 20 minutes of my life to make a long trek there?
Well, my friends, Huong’s here to tell you the very five reasons that propel a premed lab rat like me to 99999 miles from Bauer Laboratory to the SEC.
The SEC Cafe and weekly free food 🍜
Food is the fuel for the mind. However, if you dread the repetitive HUDS daily food offerings or refrain from eating out to save up for your all-out spring break travel, the SEC cafeteria might be a saving grace for you 🙏🏻. The cafeteria is located to the right when you come in from the main gate; it offers a great variety of hot and cold foods (and did I mention no red best fresh catch?), pre-made rice bowls, a grill station, a deli, a hot soup, a salad bar, smoothies, and desserts. The cafeteria accepts BoardPlus, and you can also swipe for Flyby meals for to-go options.
PLUS, they offer weekly free food alternating on Tuesday and Wednesday dinner. Some past options were Indian, make-your-own omelets (any IHOP fans here?), hotdogs, and tater tots!
The Harvard Time Capsule
Relive your childhood experience hip-hopping in front of the mirror with this fabulous exclusive art installment of the space, the Harvard Time Capsule. Though the installation does not teleport you back to your star moment, it’s guaranteed to give you the same emotional experience. Made with “Flip-Discs” - electromagnetic pixels that rotate from one side to another by BREAKFAST, a Brooklyn-based artist collective, the piece captures many passersby’s motions and interactions in front of the wall and replays them throughout the days. If you want to practice that Tiktok dance or communicate with someone from the future, the Time Capsule has got your back.
Mark I
The SEC is a place of many firsts: first Harvard facility to be opened during COVID, the first building to house, all together, classes, labs, and dedicated spaces for student clubs, and a place that houses the first programmable computer in the US - 1944 Mark I. Want to educate yourself about Harvard Mark's great history, and drama, including how he was involved in designing the first atomic bombs? Do you miss Mark since he was gone from the Science Center?
Mark misses you too and is waiting for you on the ground floor of the SEC. Don't make him sad!
Large, Aesthetic, and Quiet Study Spaces ✍🏻
Gone now are the days when you fail to resist the temptation to be an overnight Lamonster, get overly-stressed in the uptight, dead quiet Widener reading room, or struggle to reserve the Science Center’s overly-booked study spaces (honestly, what are people doing in there?!). With various rooms and spaces in this 500,000-square-foot building, the complex is perfect for students needing different kinds of focus space: student lounges for a collaborative study session, breakout rooms for a quiet ultimate grind session, and lab space for a hands-on work hour.
One evening, I had the honor to grind out two crimson articles that were due at 11:58 p.m. in one of the SEC classrooms. To prevent people from discovering my “trespassing” attempts, I turned the glass opaque using a toggle switch on the wall. My friends, I just want to say that it is a huge privacy upgrade!
Creative in-door exercise 🏃🏻
The complex’s outdoor patios, greenspace terraces, or wide hallways are perfect locations for you to finish that 10-15 minute set of walking lunges or front leg raises. If you’re down for SEC sightseeing, no one forbids you to half-jog or half-walk around the building. We always love hitting two birds with one stone!
Even if you are a non-STEM, the SEC, with its aesthetics, green spaces, and state-of-the-art infrastructure, will not only blow your mind but might also help you overcome writer’s block over that big assignment. So before the SEC becomes the second Science Center that everyone complains about, it’s definitely worth visiting.
And if you still cannot get over the 132847546354 miles to the SEC, remember that the Allston Loop shuttle is always here for you <3
