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HILS Home > Life Beyond the Labs
HILS Sponsored Activities
A key part of the HILS mission is to facilitate extracurricular 'beyond the bench' student, faculty, and staff interactions--and to encourage participation from as many parts of Harvard's thriving life sciences community as possible.
Recent "Lively Life Sciences" activities sponsored or supported by HILS include a Welcome Gala Dinner for first-year PhD and Medical School students, Fall research symposia and conferences, a Longwood-based Life Sciences Professional Development Series, a summer barbque for undergraduate research interns, and Request for Proposal (RFP) solicitations for student-organized events.
HILS actively seeks out these important opportunities for enrichment, and will continue to develop and grow a compelling portfolio of activities through close collaboration with its member programs and student advisory groups.
Visit the HILS CALENDAR for an up-to-date listing of life science-related conferences, symposia, lectures, discussion groups, social gatherings, and more.
The center of graduate student life is Dudley House, a bustling house in Harvard Yard where GSAS students can interact with their colleagues and faculty from all departments in an informal atmosphere. Events include student-faculty dinners, discussion groups, language tables, dances, art exhibits, a concert series, and ski trips and other outings. Students may join an intramural athletic team, any number of musical groups, a literary magazine, and public service organizations.
Dudley House also has strong connections to students on the Longwood Medical Area campus. House Master James Hogle, the Edward S. Harkness Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, maintains an academic office on the Medical School campus. Many Dudley fellows, who run the various programs at the House, are students in the medical and life sciences.
To keep up with events at Dudley House, students in the Medical area may sign up for the Dudley e-mail list (go to www.fas.harvard.edu/~dudley and click on “Mailing List.”). Students living and working away from the Cambridge campus need not sign up for ticketed events in person but may simply call the House office (617-495-2255).
With more than 50 other colleges and universities in the area, social life in Cambridge and Boston is highly student oriented. Cambridge combines the attractions of a cosmopolitan city with the charm of a New England town. Organized around traditional town greens, tree-lined squares, and the banks of the Charles River, Cambridge is one of metropolitan Boston’s vital urban centers. One-of-a-kind shops, international restaurants, bookstores, cafes, and music stores are found throughout Harvard Yard.
Boston is full of history with the Freedom Trail, the USS Constitution, and innumerable historic sites, but it is also a thriving modern city with diverse cultures, a vibrant business environment, and important arts centers.
Within a few hours drive of Boston and Cambridge are the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean, Walden Pond, the historically important towns of Lexington and Concord, ski resorts in Vermont and New Hampshire, and more.
The metropolitan area’s inexpensive, extensive public transportation system (the “T”) gives HILS students easy access to all of Greater Boston via subway, commuter railroad, and bus. For further information, see the MBTA website.
A free shuttle bus—“The M2”—links the Longwood Medical area with MIT and Harvard Square in Cambridge. See Masco for more information.
Online maps of the Cambridge campus, Longwood Medical Area, and other areas of interest to graduate students are available at Harvard University Maps.
GSAS Housing Services assists full-time graduate students in exploring their options for both on-campus and off-campus housing. Housing Services staff manage the GSAS Residence Halls, the Dudley Meal Plan, GSAS Housing Exchange, summer conference housing, and off-campus housing services (including an online database of off-campus housing options).
GSAS Housing Services also serves as a resource for other housing-related information such as information on moving companies, bed and breakfast lodging, and storage facilities.