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California Institute of Technology
- Inside Scoop

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Inside Scoop

Quick Stats

School Slang
  • ACM 95: Applied and Computational Mathematics 95, a class that most students here have to take which is extremely difficult.
  • ASCIT: The student government association which most students are members of. The ASCIT officers are sort of the student body government of the campus.
  • The Coffeehouse: The student-run coffeehouse in the SAC.
  • The C-Store: The Caltech convenience store next to Chandler Dining Hall in the center of campus.
  • Darbs: Members of Dabney House.
  • Ditch Day: A day in third term when seniors set up activities for underclassmen as a sort of odd tradition. There are no classes on Ditch Day; it’s a Caltech holiday.
  • Flems: Members of Fleming House.
  • Frosh: Freshmen.
  • IHC: The Interhouse Council which consists of elected offices and the presidents of the seven houses.
  • Llyodies: Members of Lloyd House.
  • Midnight Donuts: ASCIT periodically has donuts at midnight on the Olive Walk for all ASCIT members.
  • Moles: Members of Blacker House.
  • OPI: Ruddock’s interhouse party.
  • RF Courtyard: The courtyard between Ricketts and Fleming.
  • Rotation: The weeklong process where new students visit all seven houses and pick/get picked into one of the houses.
  • Rudds: Members of Ruddock House.
  • S’mores: Sophomores.
  • The SAC: The Student Activities Center in the basement of the South houses.
  • Scurves: Members of Ricketts House.
  • The Tech: The Caltech student-run newspaper.
  • Tech/Techers: Students here refer to Caltech as just “Tech.” Likewise the students here are Techers.
  • Tommy, Marsden, etc.: Students generally refer to texts by their authors since so many of the books have titles like, “Intoduction to . . . ”
  • The Wedding Cake: Students sometime refer to Beckmann Auditorium as the wedding cake, because it is big, white, and circular.
Things I Wish I Knew Before Coming To School
  • Everyone says the school is hard, but students don’t realize how difficult the school is until they are enrolled here.
  • How small the school is; 900 students may not sound too small, but it is tiny for a college campus.
Tips to Succeed
  • Don’t date first term of frosh year. Students who hook up early tend to not make friends. Adjusting to the work at Caltech is difficult and takes up a lot of time, and if a student spends all of his or her free time with his or her boyfriend or girlfriend, he or she doesn’t have time to make friends. Friends are necessary here because you need someone to do homework with and hang out.
  • Don’t try to do it alone. Some students don’t realize that collaboration on homework is not cheating. If you don’t understand a concept or how to do a problem, ask a friend, a TA, or a professor (not during lecture).
  • Don’t try to do too much. Students often come to Caltech thinking it will be like high school; they’ll eventually find out that it’s not. Taking too many classes or doing too many activities is not a good idea because students need adjusting space. College takes getting used to. Also, the work is very hard and students who over-commit themselves tend to get very stressed out.
  • Have outside interests. For most students, it helps to have a non-academic hobby or two. It is a good outlet for frustration and an escape from the extreme academics at Caltech.
  • Take it one day at a time. Sometimes, one needs to sit back and focus on one thing at a time. If you think about all you have to do, you might just have a nervous breakdown.
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Facts

Traditions
  • Ditch Day: This started as a prank played on seniors who all ditched on a specified day near the end of third-term their senior year. The underclassmen would barricade or “stack” the seniors’ rooms so they could not get in. This evolved to the present-day Caltech holiday when seniors set up elaborate puzzles and activities to occupy the underclassmen on the day they ditch. At the end of the day, the underclassmen are given a bribe of candy, sweets, etc. If the underclassmen find the seniors’ activities “stack” to be lame, they “counter stack” the room by barricading it. At the end of Ditch Day, the canon on the Olive Walk is fired, and the seniors become “ghosts” as the juniors officially become seniors.
  • Rotation: This is the week-long meeting of freshmen and upperclassmen at the beginning of the school year. At the end of Rotation, the cannon is fired, and the pre-frosh (new students) become freshmen and the previous freshmen become sophomores.
Urban Legends
  • A fun rumor is that there’s a graduate student who runs the fountain in Milikan Pond. Supposedly, he was trapped under the pond by a crazy professor.
  • There are generally rumors about professors who make their graduate students and undergraduates work insane hours. Some professors are rumored to make their students work every day for 12 hours, including weekends.

Most Recent Student Author

College Prowler guides are in the hands of students throughout the entire process. Because you can't make student-written guides without the students, we have students at each campus who write, edit, and survey their peers for every guide that we publish. Thanks to our most recent student author at Caltech

Name: Mayra Sheikh

Hometown: San Fernando Valley, Calif.

Major: Chemistry

see all student author bios >

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College Prowler is seeking talented student authors to assist with writing and updating the College Prowler guides to their schools. This is a great opportunity for a student to gain experience and tremendous exposure, utilize new media techniques, and share advice with high school students about what life is really like at your college.

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