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FactsSlang
- 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.
- 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.
- Scurves - Members of Ricketts House.
- Tech/Techers - Students here refer to Caltech as just “Tech.” Likewise the students here are Techers.
- 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.
- The SAC - The Student Activities Center in the basement of the South houses.
- The Tech - The Caltech student-run newspaper.
- The Wedding Cake - Students sometime refer to Beckmann Auditorium as the wedding cake, because it is big, white, and circular.
- Tommy, Marsden, etc. - Students generally refer to texts by their authors since so many of the books have titles like, “Intoduction to . . . ”
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.
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.
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.
School Spirit
School spirit varies from time to time. In some cases, students are very enthusiastic about Caltech, and there is a lot of school pride, especially in research areas and when a professor wins the Nobel Prize. A lot of times, students will remark about something unique, and others will respond, “only at Tech.” In other cases, students seem apathetic (often at athletic events). Although for the size of the school and the math-science orientation, there is a lot of school pride.
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