Victor Kamenker

Victor Kamenker

For my sketch, I followed ChengHe’s advice and focused on the areas that are most meaningful to me on campus—these also happen to be the areas that I spend the most time in at Harvard. Most notable, although not central in my sketch, is my home away from home: Adams House. Harvard College really intends for the Houses to be fulfilling communities and I truly feel that Adams succeeds at this. This is why I have spent so much time and graphite on the bottom right corner of the map. I also (rather cheekily) did not mark the other houses on my map. Adams residents have a reputation for looking down upon and being snobby towards other houses—I used my map to perpetuate this notion.

The other places that are important to me on campus, namely coffee, libraries, and the art museum are also marked.

The central part of campus is Harvard Yard and as such takes the central location on my sketch. If I had a bit more time and artistic ability, perhaps I could’ve inverted the map to make Adams the center of my sketch (since it is the center of my Harvard universe). I was able to draw out the big buildings in the Yard that I’m familiar with—i.e. freshman dorms, classroom buildings, but I definitely haven’t stepped foot in places like Robinson Hall or Loeb House to remember to include them. I think I also drew the paths incorrectly; however, the aim was more to show some representation of a walkway rather than necessarily depict the existing walkways. Additionally, I think my scale is some way off given that Adams appears much larger than some of the dorms in the Yard, and Widener is nowhere near as large as it should be (it is much bigger than most of the dorms), but the shapes and sizes I drew are the evocations of these places in my head and probably as such depict their relative importance to my life.