Find places to entrap people into meaningful conversations.
It’s now been at least three months since you arrived at Harvard Business School, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed; and for some of you it has been a year and three months. This passage of time has made you bleary-eyed and sleek-ponied. The endless rotunda of social gatherings – pre-party section get-togethers, post-party lounge debauchery, drink-ticket lines and ladies’ bathroom commiserations – has begun to turn even the glib-tongued weary. What does one do if one wants to have heartfelt conversations with new people in these exhausting times? More specifically, where does one go?
Tunnels: On a recent rainy day, I ventured into the tunnel to find rush-hour traffic – far-removed from the day I did a voiced-over tour for my mom (“Is there never anyone else? What if you get lost?” conjuring new and creative fears beyond the massive amount of student debt). After leaving the tunnel with the pleasure of having engaged in a conversation which devolved into a discussion of whether or not to attend their next section event (I, obviously, RSVPed yes), I wondered – aren’t the tunnels a great place to meet new people? In the warming company of the boys, Steam Main 1 and Steam Main 2, one can muse on the searing question of why there are emergency buttons in the tunnel (the blistering truth will cook your social goose!).
Gallatin Market provides a place to stop for a quick snack, if you feel you haven’t met the day’s calorie count Just joking, of course I don’t count calories. With Spangler’s pay-by-weight, I just count dollars instead! $7 meals are both a financial achievement and a surefire sign I will squander the saved dollars on a Heath (king-size!) instead.
Laundry Room: Surely it is cheating to talk about laundry rooms, in the same listicle as the tunnels, of which they are an extension? Only those unacquainted with the nuances of the etiquette of the washer-dryer would utter something so uninformed.Nevertheless, the ritual of laundry is a chance to form lifelong bonds. Immigrant students with only one week worth of rotating wardrobe? Catch your laundry gang (other criminal outfit repeaters) every Wednesday at 11 pm!
Recognize your crush’s laundry basket in the room, but it seems your machine cycles aren’t aligned? Leverage the great flexibility of the dryer, which one should open at some point between the half and one hour mark to prevent clothes shrinkage. Not surprising at all to show up at the mysterious 43 minute mark, just as the machine next to you goes to zero!
TV in the Common Room: Come on, Ramya. Of course one meets people in the Common Room. Alas, gentle reader, I refer specifically to the Common Room TV, an underutilized resource. Pick your favourite crowd-puller foreign language film, gather a few of your mother tongue minions and get started! Curious passersby will gather, and you can tell them all about how the melodious song in which the hero pulls out the nail from a heroine’s foot is a euphemism (India’s censor board, in their attempt to promote modesty, simply encourages a twister imagination). A meaningful but unfortunately and undoubtedly brief encounter!
Open invitation to all readers for Bollywood evening at Chase, every Friday.
iLab: At this point, I imagine the reader is sweating out of frustration (as one does, when frustrated). iLab?? Literally the meeting place for entrepreneurs?? Alas, gentle reader, I have thwarted you again! I suggest iLab as a great place to meet the non-entrepreneurs who gather there. On one such venture, I
was offered home-made dal (lentils)
audited a friend’s messages on the graveyard Section S group
found out about the South Asian Business Association’s (SABA) singles mixer
earned a place in SABA’s overheard chat for a complaint that twenty people in a single’s mixer is essentially two police line-ups of people and hence is limiting
I’m sensing a theme to these interactions. No wonder singles mixers take place at Batten Hives.
Bathroom Line after Class: For a space situated so close to the hallowed halls in which TOM is taught, the long lines in the bathroom after class, cannot, after all, be an artefact of poor planning – I believe they were engineered as a way to convert bathrooms into a third space. What better way to banter with someone new in fearless honesty, than when the weight of your SOS morning coffee is pressing down on your bladder? What better way to find close and like-minded friends than to find out who is willing to continue a conversation across stalls, with an unseen audience?
Not every place is made for chatter, however. Some places are meant to be swift and silent passages, students moving through like ships sailing through the night. I’ve learned to shut up in the following places:
Printer near the classrooms: Who hasn’t stood nervously in a line at 9:28 am, wondering whether they are destined to have a print-out to fall back on? Conversing with someone at the printer comes with the risk of worse rejection than your standard conversation with a fellow student, wherein your conversation partner is looking over your shoulder to find a more prestigious social target – in this case, their darting glance finds the printer instead, leaving you with the knowledge that you’re now lower in the social hierarchy than the printer.
In the check-in passage near SFP / OWA: You’re standing in the entry passage to SFP2. You have dialled the number of your friend’s apartment, and are inspecting your windswept hair in the camera as you wait for them to pick up. Wait – a friend has come through the door, and is holding it open for you! You scramble door-wards, sharing a quick thanks. Wait! You can’t let the intercom keep ringing! With a foot in the door, you execute a one-legged stretch which would do your Shad instructor proud and cut the call. Not before realising that your acrobatic antics had witnesses both in your physical space and virtual.
No this suspiciously specific incident didn’t happen to me, why do you ask?
Any SoulCycle-esque exercise class: Ever met an acquaintance and thought “Hey, wouldn’t taking an exercise class together be a great way to get to know this person?” Let me help you with a quick questionnaire to answer that:
When was the last time you exercised? No, your brief pre-HBS, unemployment-fuelled one-month gym frenzy did not build lasting stamina.
Do you eat meals at regular times?
How loudly do you huff and puff when you run the last stretch to class at 9:27 am?
Review the answers to these questions honestly, else, like me, in the semi-darkened cycle studio, you will spend more time than one should asking yourself two questions (i) where will I hit my head if I fall off this bike?, and (ii) how to read an analog clock in a mirror? (Purely oxygen deprivation - please note I do not struggle with analog clocks at any other time. No that is not the reason I do not wear a wristwatch.)
The Cross-Draft near OWA: I was just walking past OWA today. Why on earth are the Towers and Courts buildings not connected on the ground floor? Why is the world’s strongest cross-draft blowing through the space between the two? Why are the two buildings not both called Towers, given that they are, in fact both Towers? Many things on the mind as I strode on buffeted by the freezing winds – please forgive me if I did not see you pass.
That leaves me with one place, which is either the best or the worst place to meet people.
??. Shad Sauna: All I know is that some sections have boys group chats coordinating
sauna meetups. How does that work? If you are a member of this elite clan, please do let us know.
Ramya Vijayram (MBA '26) is originally from Chennai, India. She graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, with a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Biotechnology. Prior to the Harvard MBA, Ramya worked at Warburg Pincus in Mumbai, India, and McKinsey and Co. in India.
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