(choral music) - So, this is my first time living away from home.

I've lived in California my whole life, except obviously this past year.

That is my house flag, Lowell House, the best house.

That's my house.

(bells chime) Ring them bells.

I'm so glad I'm here, I feel so lucky and as much as I love California, I'm glad I'm not going to school there.

I'm glad I'm getting a different experience.

Being accepted at Harvard, all of a sudden, I have to stand out from my peers, just as much as I did back then.

You know, at high school, I was, I knew almost everybody and everybody knew me.

And here, I have a few good friends, but not too many, um, which partly is a function of me not going to all the parties.

(music) In my housing application, this is a direct quote, I wrote "I do not drink, smoke, do drugs, or have sex."

"This is very important to me".

So I tried to make it clear that I would like roommates who had the same thing and, uh, at least a few of them are, like, right on me in that aspect.

There is definitely kind of an awkward moment when you're supposed to discuss what would happen in the event of an overnight romantic encounter.

I just kind of told them I'm not really comfortable at all with that.

But, you know, they've been generally pretty okay with it.

(music) - When tourists are walking by, people tell them it's good luck to rub the toe.

But among Harvard students, the tradition is to pee on the toe.

It's hilarious when you watch a group of tourists walk by.

They all want to touch the toe or take a picture touching the toe and you're just thinking about the drunk dude you saw peeing on it last night.

Mostly I just know people from school, the majority of whom are not native.

The stereotype I have in my head is some large man with a big bushy beard who only drinks Sam Adams beer and hasn't missed a Patriots game since he was five.

But, you know, not so many people are actually like that.

If you chose to, you could not care about meeting new people.

You could not care about building relationships because they're all going to go, you know, I'm going to graduate and never see my roommates again, that kind of thing.

Knowing that I'm not going to be here for very long I can choose to make it a good thing or a bad thing, and try to choose to make it good.

(choral music) - What makes you a Massachusetts-ian or a Californian, it really just is whether or not you decide to be one.

The California part of me will never leave, but the more time I spend here in Massachusetts, the more I feel like I belong here and more I love it, and the more that will be a part of me.

I think that I'll just become a hybrid of sorts.

I'll never be completely one or the other.

Nice!

That's uh, that's Boston, that's Massachusetts.

(choral music)