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Harvey Mudd College - Inside ScoopCollege Prowler0.00
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Harvey Mudd College? FactsSchool Slang
- 5C - The Claremont Consortium of Mudd, Scripps, Pitzer, CMC, and Pomona colleges.
- All-nighter - A working day ending with breakfast. One “pulls” an all-nighter. To say you “did” or “had” an all-nighter is something completely different. Ask your sponsor.
- Core - The core curriculum that every Harvey Mudd student has to take in their first three semesters. This is when people try to figure out what major they want to go into.
- Empty Box Check - See Mail Check.
- Giraffe - The six-foot unicycle. No, really.
- ITR - 1) Ineligible to re-register; 2) Invited to retire; 3) Your motivation for all-nighters.
- Mail Check - A frequent yet futile activity, in which a student looks for mail that isn’t coming. See Empty Box Check.
- PFL - Physical Fitness for Life, a graduation requirement taken by frosh, and sometimes seniors.
- Prefrosh - An influx of prospective students on college tours are almost a part of the college scene the few weeks after acceptance letters have been sent out. On a weekend in April, there is an admitted student program (otherwise known as prefrosh weekend). In those few days, the college basically has the equivalent of another class of students.
- Proctor - This person is a lot like a dorm resident assistant, except everybody loves their proctor. If you’re locked out of your room or have other problems, you go to your proctor. Proctors also supply the dorm with free candy, emergency condoms, and earplugs for when your boisterous suitemate is using the emergency condoms.
- Quarter - Half a load of laundry. Note that 4 quarters are worth way more than a dollar.
- WIBSTR - A universal truth/horrible lie.
Things I Wish I Knew Before Coming To School
- Academics aren’t everything. You can skip a homework assignment, and it won’t be the end of the world. You can get good grades without being perfect. Learning how to fail is something every student at Mudd has to come to terms with at one point or another.
- Bring a plant. They will give you oxygen, and keep you company when you’re pulling an all-nighter.
- Bring lots of quarters. You will make friends very easily if you have quarters.
- Do everything you can as soon as possible. Go join clubs, play IM sports, party, make friends! Your free time will get crunched eventually, so prioritize early and get going.
- Don’t be afraid to try things that you might not do well in (i.e. unicycling, juggling).
- Don’t date your suitemates and don’t date roommates. Also, long-distance relationships almost never work, so say goodbye to your high school sweetheart, at least for college. People in long-distance relationships often don’t meet enough new people, because they’re talking online with their significant other.
- Get rid of those competitive notions. High school may be all about the top two percent, but college is about learning and having fun. Half of the students are going to be below average, and it may well be you. Know that being valedictorian in high school means nothing once you get to college. Plenty of valedictorians fail out of Mudd. So don’t try to compete, try to help other people, and get help from other people.
- Get to know people in-depth. It’s easier in college, since you’re living across the hall from them. Everyone has an interesting story to tell.
- Knowing the common core before coming to Mudd is important because compared to other colleges, Harvey Mudd gives students little freedom in their course choices.
- Learn how to manage your time. If you do that before coming to college, everything will be a thousand times easier.
- To be an engineering major or to study a language, academic schedules must be planned carefully. Do not just plan it out in your head, talk to your advisors early so they can help you. Studying abroad for engineers is possible, but this requires even more extensive preparation.
- Try getting involved in research with a professor in your major. The great thing about Mudd is that there are only undergraduate students, so professors are eager to work on research projects with students over the summer and during the school year.
Tips to Succeed
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions of professors about homework, papers, and so forth. The professors are there to teach you, not to intimidate you.
- Don't be afraid to ask for an extension on an assignment if you are really struggling on it. Just don't email the professor at 2 a.m. in the morning telling him that, "Sorry I have not done the homework yet, may I get an extension?" You will probably get a, "NO!"
- Get started on homework early. It’s much easier to figure stuff out when you can leave it for a while, and come back to it later. It also gives you time to ask other people for help.
- Have fun, then study hard.
- Help other people. Mudd is not that competitive. Students often find that they attain a deeper understanding of a subject by helping others.
- If it is getting very late at night and you’re stuck on a problem, obey the law of diminishing returns and give up for the night. One problem wrong is not a big loss.
- Never work in groups larger than four or five people. In large groups, people don’t participate equally, and invariably, one person figures everything out while the rest of the people are just along for the ride.
- Realize that everyone at Mudd is smart. Just because you’ve never gotten average on a test before doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you’re in the middle of the top few percent of the nation.
- Stay with something you are good at. Don’t worry about getting a job, your major means less than demonstrating that you are a competent person in general.
- Take classes that you enjoy. The extra work that these classes require will be more like relaxation without guilt than anything else. Also take classes off campus. The other colleges offer a wide range of really unique classes that every Mudder should take advantage of. This is also a way to meet students from other colleges.
Urban Legends
- An artist donated a sculpture of a plow to be placed in front of Platt Dining Hall, saying that the sculpture was made of a material that would never rust and could never be corroded. This was the equivalent of throwing down the glove. A group of chemistry majors decided to take on the artwork’s integrity. Using a combination of acids and other corrosives, the students succeeded in turning the bright, shiny sculpture into a rusty mess. It still stands outside Platt, and is a reminder to all students that when art and science try to compete, the result is never pretty.
- An artist painted a mural in Platt that consisted of some landscape, mountains, and trees that represented the foothills. Unfortunately, it was a student who noticed that the hills and trees in question really resembled lettuce-filled tacos (they really do look like tacos; it’s a very sad thing). The next day, a monster had been painted into the landscape with a dialogue bubble saying “Mmm, Tacos!” It was coincidence that the artist came to lunch that day, and took great offense to the desecration of his artwork. The monster was removed, but the tacos remain.
- Down at Pitzer, the college prides itself on its architecture, especially the skylights in the main building. A group of Mudders somehow managed to climb onto the roof and cover parts of the skylight, turning it into a Bat Signal. It remained there for a while until Mudders admitted their pranking.
- In 1966, a Volkswagon bug mysteriously appeared in an East Hall hallway, with less than an inch to spare on either side. Pranksters had tipped the bug on end, and squeezed it around a corner and into the hallway. Eventually, the perpetrators reversed the same technique to free the bug.
- Not quite a legend yet, but rather a standing memorial to drunken carousing, this event took place in the backwaters of Linde Dorme. A very drunk student, armed with bottles of shaving cream, sprayed the words “Fat Joey” onto the wall of the Linde Dorme upper lounge. Unfortunately, the student failed to realize in his incoherent state that shaving cream soaks into the cinder wall, making the words impossible to scrub out. After a year of pressure washing, the words still stood, so we decided to make a dedication. A plaque now hangs officially in the upper Linde lounge, the Fat Joey lounge, “in order to celebrate in part the generosity of Adam Kangas with a bottle of shaving cream on the date of…”
- One morning, students awoke to find a replica of Stonehenge in the middle of the quad, built entirely out of sofas. The perpetrators said that the sofas were chosen based on a rigorous inspection of their spiritual qualities, structural integrity, and (above all) proximity to the site. Six came from South Hall, some from Engineering, many from the Green Room, and two from the Muddhole. The monument was disassembled later that day.
- ressed as construction workers with “official” documents, a flatbed truck, and a sturdy forklift, six Mudders heisted the Caltech Cannon. The “foreman” said his crew had orders to remove the cannon for repairs. Mudd’s president saw to it that the cannon was returned to Caltech, if somewhat unceremoniously, a week later.
- The day before Case’s foundation was to be laid, a group of students invaded the construction site under the cover of night, and moved all of the construction stakes one foot to the west. Thus, Case dorm ended up being built one foot away from the original layout. This would have caused no problems, except for the fact that the water lines had already been placed underground. The water pressure in Case dorm is terrible to this day.
Traditions
- A Living Calendar - Case is also the dorm that celebrates the seasons. The Casemas party is always thrown as close to Winter Break as possible and features a snowbank in front of the dorm. For Slippery When Wet, a party heralding summer, the Case dorm courtyard is flooded. Autumn and spring are left out because Southern California doesn’t “do” the seasonal thing.
- Bar Monkey - Engineering for student purposes is a tradition at Mudd. If you visit the Bar Monkey at Harvey Mudd College’s West Hall, you can choose from its selection of 188 mixed drinks, and the Bar Monkey will gladly serve you eight ounces of it in less than ten seconds. Designed and built by HMC sophomores Steve Avery, Brad Greer, and Dustin Cooper, the Linux-based Bar Monkey is an automated bartender. It contains 16 ingredients, allowing it to dispense the 188 mixed drinks that are stored in its database.
- Happy Wednesdays! - It’s happy hour! It’s Wednesday! Platt is host to this venerable tradition of, well, donuts and music every Wednesday night. In fact, it's one of the best things about the middle of the week. Happy Wednesdays are a great way to meet people, while avoiding homework that desperately needs doing.
- Hundred Taco Night - Del Taco sometimes has specials where you can get three tacos for a dollar. Hundred taco night involves a bunch of people watching “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and eating as many tacos as they can. First one to 100 wins!
- Parties - There are annual parties at Mudd that have been around for as long as any of us can remember. Here’s a small sampling of traditional parties: Foam Party, Halloweiner, Long Tall Glasses
- Puddle Jump - Every year, a group of people gather together to run through the 5C, jumping in all of the fountains and pools of each college. There are wild chants, all of which are entirely too offensive to be set in print. The secret chants are passed down from year to year, in an entirely oral tradition frowned upon by many a dean at the 5C.
- Roster Signing - When freshmen first arrive at Mudd, they are required to sign the roster of students and agree to abide by the Honor Code. The Associated Students of Harvey Mudd College President presides over this solemn event, which is interrupted every year by a group of freshmen who volunteer to “assassinate” the President in whatever way they see fit. Be warned, those who attempt this task are always intercepted by the President’s two armed (with water pistols) bodyguards.
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