Silly thread -- funny college traditions?

<p>I just think this would be interesting.</p>

<p>Personally, I love Stanford's spit-swap during the first full moon of the year; hilarious if risky... (are there mono swabs on campus?)</p>

<p>Also there's a school (I wanna say... Northwestern mebbe?) where there's a huge rock in the center of campus that is spray painted over and over again, with colors of different frat/sororities. The rule is you have to guard the rock for 24 hours before you can spray it, and it can only be sprayed at night. Lolz.</p>

<p>And Puget Sound has a Ben and Jerry's reading club, which I just think is cool.</p>

<p>Grinnell's Titular Head parade along with the Grinnell College Relays (if these are still happening...)</p>

<p>There's a rock on the University of the Pacific campus that's painted and guarded, perhaps this happens at many colleges?</p>

<p>MIT's hacks, from the Smoot measurements on the bridge across the Charles to the police car on the dome. Rigging a water fountain up to spray from a fire hose. I also liked the story of how MIT stole Cal Tech's cannon and secretly transported it 3000 miles across the country.</p>

<p>Painting the sea lion statue yellow in honor of the banana slugs at UCSC.</p>

<p>theredsmileyface: Northwestern has the rock. Tufts and Carnegie Mellon have similar traditions, with a cannon and a big fence, respectively.</p>

<p>A watch is dropped from the highest point on campus. If it breaks, the incoming freshmen class will have good luck. I think this was at Princeton or Yale.</p>

<p>On their birthdays, students at Claremont McKenna are thrown into a fountain or "ponded" by their friends.</p>

<p>At University of Virginia, students run down a lawn while streaking, reach the end of the lawn and kiss a statue's ass, then run back up the lawn. I may have confused some parts of this tradition but the part about being naked is correct.</p>

<p>Beer Bike, nuff said, Rice</p>

<p>Wisconsin Law third years run down the field at half-time of the Homecoming game and toss a cane over the goalpost. If they catch it on the way down, they will win their first case. </p>

<p>Law</a> School Legends and Lore - University of Wisconsin Law School</p>

<p>
[quote]
A watch is dropped from the highest point on campus. If it breaks, the incoming freshmen class will have good luck. I think this was at Princeton or Yale.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Neither one, and it's seniors not freshmen:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Things are a little easier on the ego at Williams College where, since 1916, seniors have been trying for a bit of communal luck. At the end of class-day ceremonies, the president and vice president of the class drop a watch 80 feet from the top of the school's chapel spire. If it breaks, time symbolically stops for a moment and the class will have good luck. Unscrupulous senior class officials have been known to stack the deck in their favor by purchasing cheap watches.

[/quote]

Commencement</a> traditions vary from coast to coast</p>

<p>In Yale, they rub this statue, a guy who brought good luck to the crew team by dipping his toe (yay for crew people!). Anyway, if you see the statue, the statue is dark like an old penny but has a really shiny toe because people rub it for good luck.</p>

<p>Similarly, there's this statue in West Point that has a spur on the boot. People manage to sneak out from the dorms (pretty much a military camp) and spin the spur for good luck.</p>

<p>Similar to the MIT Hacks, some West Point students managed to sneak by guards and dismantle a cannon, and reassemble it on a roof in a short period of time. What's amazing is that the crew hired to get it back down took so much longer during broad daylight. West Pointers are awesome.</p>

<p>If you rub John Harvard's toe, it brings good luck or admission into Harvard. Most ppl don't know undergrads pee on the toe while they are utterly drunk. Whenever I see tourist by that statue in Harvard yard, I laugh. hahahahaha</p>

<p>Beer Bike would be one of hundreds of Rice traditions that make other schools look lame in comparison (though Beer Bike is kind of the epitome).</p>

<p>I'll list a few:</p>

<p>Beer Bike (duh)
Baker 13
College Cheers
NOD, 80s Party, Bacchanalia (all them parties)
Anything that goes on during O-week
Jacks
Screw Yer Roommate
College Night
etc.</p>

<p>Throwing toast at Penn football games</p>

<p>Phead128,</p>

<p>They do it when they're not drunk too :D.</p>

<p>The Yale "tradition" of rubbing the shoe is false. Nobody does this. I think the same goes for Harvard's statue as well. Maybe they were traditions at one point, but not really anymore (and for some reason, the tour guides keep making it out like those traditions still exist).</p>

<p>My turn for Chicago:</p>

<ol>
<li> Scav Hunt: four days, 300 items. Search "scav08" on youtube to get a sense of the ensuing craziness.</li>
</ol>

<p>The</a> University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt</p>

<ol>
<li> Aims of Education address: given to incoming first-years during O-Week, makes me shed a tear or 50.</li>
</ol>

<p>Favorite speech:
The</a> Aims of Education Address (for the class of 2006)</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Kangeiko/Kuviasungnerk. Winter festival with a Polar Bear Run, hot chocolate, early morning yoga. Yay fun.</p></li>
<li><p>The Lascivious Costume Ball (it's been disbanded for reasons not worth getting into, but rumor has it that it may make some kind of return!)</p></li>
<li><p>Dollar Shake Day at the C-Shop (every Wednesday)</p></li>
<li><p>Selling t-shirts with inappropriate slogans on them.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>wesleyan - Every few decades the Douglas cannon, an old campus landmark, gets yanked from its reinforced concrete placement along College Row and winds up in improbable places around the world (the bottom of the Connecticut river, The Russian Mission to the U.N., the Nixon White House, to name a few). It is periodically displayed at special events, then scurried away by anonymous custodians. </p>

<p>For more on the history of the Douglas Cannon, click here: Douglas</a> Cannon Exhibit</p>

<p>At either Harvey Mudd or Caltech, students sometimes disassemble a nearby car and reassemble it on top of a building or something.</p>

<p>William and Mary has a tradition they mention during campus tours.
Apparently, the Thomas Jefferson statue is pointing at something.
They finally figured out he was pointing at the girl's bathroom of a nearby building.</p>

<p>BEER BIKE!</p>

<p>Actually, there's nothing silly about it. It's a very serious matter 'round these parts.</p>

<p>Kegs and Eggs on St Pattys morning.... SUNY Albany :)</p>