School Spirit
During orientation days, dorms go against other dorms on their campus in all types of activities. Some of these activities include creating the best banner for your dorm or winning the most athletic activities for your dorm. People paint their faces and bodies and have a huge amount of spirit that day. It varies from campus to campus what activities you do.
On sunny days, Rutgers organizations set up booths along the campuses and give freebies to anyone walking down the street; anything from water bottles, juice, and hair products to Frisbees, deodorant, and cookies. Major stores, such as J.Crew, Express, and Aeropostale have box sales on different campuses and sell the previous year’s clothes at incredible prices. These events make Rutgers students appreciate going to a major university. The resentment of being forced to come to Rutgers soon disappears when students get a name brand hoodie for $5.
Since Rutgers is a public university, many native New Jersians resent the fact that they come here instead of a private university. Many students originally come to Rutgers because of its cheap tuition and the immense amount of scholarships given to in-state residents. However, the majority of students that come to Rutgers with a negative outlook ended up loving it. They come because of the discounted education, but end up staying because of heavy school spirit.
University-wide spirit is prevalent during football and basketball games, when the stadiums are flooded with scarlet colored sweatshirts, T-shirts, and pants emblazoned with university pride. Since Rutgers is a Division I school, the football games attract crazed fans. Students are even known to dye their hair and paint their bodies scarlet red, black, gray, and white before football games. Although the football team has had a losing streak for the past few decades, Rutgers students still root them on in the 41,500-seat stadium. School spirit is absolutely at its best at men’s basketball games in the RAC, Livingston’s truncated, triangle-shaped stadium. Since the complex is unusually shaped, the noise carries and cheering becomes insanely loud.