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Davidson College - Inside ScoopCollege Prowler0.00
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Davidson College? FactsSchool Slang
- Beast - Milwaukee’s Best, the Court drink of choice due to price, not taste (definitely not taste). Beast Light for the ladies.
- BSC - Black Student Coalition.
- CatCard - Your Davidson student ID. This works for dorm entry, charging meals, and buying books. Most campus vending machines are on CatCards, as is the Domino’s delivery guy.
- Commons - Short for Vail Commons, the main dining hall.
- DCPC - Short for Davidson College Presbyterian Church.
- Down the Hill - Going down the hill means you are either going to the frats for a dance party or going to hang out or drink at the senior or sophomore apartments. This term is almost always associated with the presence of alcohol, whether or not you drink it.
- D-Road - The curving brick road spanning Chambers lawn. Actually looks like more of a ‘C.’
- FIJI - Phi Gamma Delta.
- IMac Field - Intramural field.
- ITS - Information Technology Services.
- KA - Kappa Alpha.
- Phi Hall - Philanthropic Hall.
- Phi-Delt - Phi Delta Theta.
- Pika - Pi Kappa Alpha.
- Prospie - A prospective student
- RA - Resident Advisor.
- ResNet - Who you call if your computer isn’t working—they work for ITS.
- Review - (Careful with this one) A Review is what all Davidson professors call “an exam.” Don’t mistake it for an in-class study session.
- Rich - Richardson dorm.
- SAE - Sigma Alpha Epsilon.
- SCC - Student Computing Center.
- SigEp - Sigma Phi Epsilon.
- The Court - Patterson Court is where all of the frats and eating houses are located, so going "to the court" means going to a frat party.
- The Depot - Off-campus apartments located next to the Brickhouse
- The Laundry - Davidson’s free-of-charge laundry service, open to students year round. They return clothes to you folded neatly and wrapped in brown paper, or ironed on a hanger. You can drop off dirty clothes as frequently or infrequently as you want.
- The Library - The Little Library. If you say “Little,” people will think you’re talking about the dorm.
- The Union - Refers to the Alvarez College Union, part of the Knobloch Campus Center.
- The Vac - The Visual Arts Center.
- U Hall - Eumenean Hall.
- Up the Hill - Where most of the dorms, the library, the union, and the main academic buildings are located.
- WaHo - Waffle House, a fine Southern tradition.
Things I Wish I Knew Before Coming To School
- Be prepared to feel like everyone else is smarter than you. In reality, everyone feels that way, but it’s a hard feeling to shake.
- College should be about fun, not just work. Have time designated for work but also make sure that you have time to relax and hang out with your friends.
- Dating on campus can get really claustrophobic really fast.
- Extreme grade deflation plagues every freshman, so don’t be discouraged during the transition from high school to college. Some grad schools are known to add around 0.5 points to level out a Davidson graduate’s GPA.
- No one really understands Webtree, but the older kids are better at getting lucky with it. Find an upperclassman to help you do your course selections, because if you fill Webtree out wrong you will not get the courses you want.
- People on your hall really do become some of your closest friends, so get to know them early on
- Professors love it when you come to see them outside the classroom
- Professors love it when you come to see them outside the classroom.
- The course load is really intense and you need to focus on academics first. Get involved, but know your limit.
- The Honor Code is very strict, but you still need a bike lock. It’s not that your bike will be stolen, but it may be borrowed if you’re not careful.
- The weather is crazy here.
- There are some really interesting people here, you just might have to get outside your comfort zone to find them sometimes.
- Those cheesy outfits and stupid costumes you acquired over the years are useful here. Theme parties are a staple of the Davidson party scene, so bring your own props!
- Time management is everything.
- Wednesday is a party night. Don't take 8:30 classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
- You can get your whites a lot brighter than the laundry can—let them press your shirts and pants, though.
- You can pass/fail 3 classes at Davidson. In fact, you can choose which ones after you have already taken them, so one bad grade is not the end of the world.
- You can’t study in your dorm room.
- You can't get away with skipping class. Not only do your professors know your name, but it is very difficult to make up work you may have missed
- You don’t have to go Greek to have a social life.
- You will run out of your own ink very fast. Use the library of Belk Lab for larger printing jobs.
Tips to Succeed
- Ask professors questions—lots of them—both inside and outside the classroom.
- Become friends with the Campus Police
- Continue to meet people. It’s easy to think Davidson’s small when you only see a small group of friends, but in reality, there are plenty of new faces out there.
- Don’t ask for too many extensions.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for an extension.
- Don't get bogged down studying at the library every night.
- Get off campus to eat. Not only on weekends, but lunches and quick dinners during the week.
- Go to the library or Chambers to study.
- Make time to get to know professors, even if it’s just visiting for a few minutes a week.
- Take advantage of drop-add to experiment with classes.
- Take time deciding on your major. You have till the end of sophomore year for a reason.
- Take time to chill. Life is hectic here; you have to relax.
- Taking a class pass/fail can save your semester, but use it wisely.
- Travel abroad, at least for one semester. If you can’t go abroad for a semester, go over the summer.
- Try to keep up with reading. Assignments are huge, but skimming the intro is better than nothing.
- Use exercise as a study break.
- You won’t need a car freshman year, but having one as a senior makes life a lot easier.
Urban Legends
- Davidson used to be the wealthiest school south of Princeton—until the Civil War.
- Duke dormitory was built after Duke University lost a bet to Davidson over a basketball game in the 1950s. Angered, they constructed the building with halls that lead nowhere and windows in all the wrong places (it has since been renovated, but is still an architectural anomaly).
- President Woodrow Wilson attended one year of college at Davidson in 1873 before transferring to Princeton. Why’d he leave? Davidson was too hard.
- The building of Old Chambers burned down in 1921, but its ‘ghost’ remains—on dry spring days, the careful observer can see the old foundations pushing up through Chambers lawn.
- The library carpet is green because that color instills natural tranquility (the same reason the inside of baseball caps are often green). However, most Davidson students still feel it instills natural vomiting reflexes.
Traditions
- Campus Christmas Party - The Annual Campus Christmas Party is an informal campus-wide gathering to light the two enormous pine trees in front of Chambers. Complete with cider, cookies, carols by candlelight, and Santa Claus on a zip line, this is an event not to be missed. What better way to kick off the holiday season?
- Christmas in Davidson - Didn’t get enough holiday cheer at the Christmas Party? Christmas in Davidson is a three-night festival sponsored by the town of Davidson. Shops and restaurants are packed with yuletide sundries, and the neighborhood is filled to the brim with carolers, parkas, and one-horse open sleighs.
- Court Selection Night - Court Selection Night is the biggest party of the year. All freshman girls are inducted into eating houses for the first time, usually by way of ceremony involving ketchup, shaving cream, and extremely cheap champagne. To top it off, freshman fraternity pledges run semi-nude through all the girls’ houses (used to be all nude, but the administration has been cracking down). Court Night is basically Davidson’s best stab at emulating an average weekend at a “big party school.”
- First Night Down - First Night Down is the second biggest party night on campus. Freshmen are allowed down to Patterson Court for the first time (they are banned for the first few weeks of school), and get to check out the fraternity and eating house scene. Virtually every house on the Court throws a party to try and impress some new recruits.
- Flickerball - It’s hard to get through Davidson without playing Flickerball, most basically described as a mix of touch football and ultimate Frisbee. Freshman girls and guys teams compete throughout the year, with the final match played under the big lights. This is a great way to earn your PE 101 team credit.
- Freshman Olympics - A staple of orientation each year, the Freshman Olympics consists of freshman halls competing against one another in a ferocious manner. Events include the two-person sprint, scooter challenge, and beach volleyball played with an enormous inflatable balloon.
- Midnight Scream - It may not be the most elaborate tradition on campus, but Midnight Scream is certainly one of the most fulfilling. During exam week, hundreds of students drop everything and scream as loud as they possibly can out their windows on the stroke of midnight. This is really amusing when heard from afar.
- Reading Day - Reading Day is the Thursday before exams on which there’s no class—it’s really more of a sleeping day.
- Red Bikes - Recently refitted and re-released, campus Red Bikes are available for use by any student or staff member. Simply pick one up where you find it, ride to your destination, and drop it off for the next user. These are key for that morning rush to class.
- Self-Scheduled Exams - If you come to Davidson for only one tradition, this is it. Very much a formal academic procedure, self-scheduled exams take place instead of regular, professor-scheduled exams at the end of each semester. Students can chose the order of their exams and when they want to take them during exam week, and then complete them unproctored in any room in Chambers (you will never be told your bio exam is on Tuesday at 8:30; you can take it when you want). Get them out of the way on Friday and leave for break early, or save them all until Wednesday and Thursday morning. Professors don’t even come to school during exam week, and exams are passed out and collected by a student-composed staff. This takes a big chunk of stress out of exams week—all brought to you by the Honor Code.
- The Cake Race - The Cake Race is a one-mile, cross-campus race run by members of the freshmen class during the first few weeks of school. Those who place in the top 50 receive cakes, all donated by members of the town community.
- The Honor Code - “The Code” is an unspoken testament among Davidson students agreeing not to lie, cheat, or steal. The Code is the main reason why students choose to leave dorm room doors open and laptops unattended. Also, it affords luxuries such as community bikes and self-scheduled exams. Offenders are tried and judged before the student-composed Honor Council, and the majority of cases heard usually concern plagiarism.
- Vespers - Vespers is an enormous service of lessons and carols held before Christmas break each year. Some features are the Concert Choir, Chamber Singers, Symphony Orchestra, Brass Ensemble, and Flute Choir. Over 1,000 students and community members crowd into DCPC for this truly memorable event.
Most Recent Contributing Author
Name: Annie Maietta
Hometown: Weston, MA
Major: Undecided Fun Fact: Annie has four siblings: one of her older sisters went to Davidson, and her younger brother aspires to. Contributing Author Internship
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