Dear readers,
I AM SO EXCITED. I want to go skip everywhere, or explode in a shower of smiley-faces reminiscent of blog posts from my first year :P. I shall contain myself, but SO EXCITED, you don’t understand. Because it’s SPRING OPEN CAMPUS FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS! (Okay, okay, I have to lay off the caps-lock as well…)
Spring Open Campus is when all of the accepted high school seniors come to visit Wellesley to decide if this is where they want to spend the next four years of their lives. High school seniors? You are dubbed “prospies”—aka prospective students. (MIT calls theirs “pre-frosh.” I think our name is better ;P.) The campus has been mobilizing for your visit for a long time: I hardly know anything about it, but every year we are sent a very organized Google document so that we can volunteer for positions. These include:
1. Overnight hostesses
I wish! But my floor is linoleum, my room is pretty small, and sharing a twin bed is actually rather difficult. Plus I didn’t manage to procure an air mattress / sofa / carpeted floor. But fear not, because others planned ahead and did so! Staying overnight was one of the best parts of my stay here, because you have a current student who is hosting you and maybe two other people who really just wants to gush about Wellesley all night :).
2. Airport greeter
3. Morning set-up crew
4. College road greeter
5. Registration shift worker
6. Lunch hostess
Hopefully I get to do this! Regardless, I kind of want to walk around with a sign that says “talk to me, I love Wellesley” on my chest. I think it’s a little too weird, but if you see me around please accost me.
7. Dorm coordinator
In short, we’ve got you covered. Everyone knows you’re coming, we’re ready for our campus to grow by a fourth overnight, and having you here reminds all of the current students how much we love this school, even if students everywhere get bogged down during test weeks :). Win-win-win-win—and now for my annual rehash of why Monica came to Wellesley! which actually oddly changes every year ;P.
WMCtW!:
1. Professors.
Note that I always must begin with professors, because I am infatuated and want to be one. Thus warned, I will announce that professors are AWESOME here. Class sizes are capped–even for introductory classes!—so we have the opportunity to get to know our professors in every class we have. This is something you will not find in a larger institution, and it’s something I prize very highly. Moreover, as mentioned, our professors are awesome. I can name the number of bad teachers I’ve had here on one hand, and most of them are superb. At Wellesley, you get the feeling that everyone is here to help you to achieve—and I wouldn’t be who I am now without the ridiculously caring support of my teachers :).
2. Everyone is here to help you achieve!
I really truly did not realize how rare this was. But this campus is startlingly unique. Literally everyone is here to support you—our lovely house managers, the staff at the Sports Center, the academic support teams (LOTS of them), the janitors (who will turn out the light when you’re sleeping in the Science Center), the teachers, the Stone Center counseling staff, the president (who urged me to invite her to my Ruhlman research presentation next year), the food staff (who will recognize you and know many students by name), the Admissions workers, the groundskeepers, the alumni, and so many more who I don’t even know exist, but are working to support us.
Everyone will bend over backward to make what we need and want happen. It is crazy, readers. I cannot express how deep the depth of this campus’s caring, and I can’t believe I didn’t realize how special it was. This community will envelop you, and do all that is possible to help you grow.
3. The students (the Wellesley Women)
This was what actually convinced me to come here. I came to Spring Open Campus three? four? years ago, and looked around and listened to the current students, and knew this was where I had to be. Because everyone has something going on—everyone’s volunteering in Boston, or works for the newspaper, or is international, or is a language major, or is playing in an orchestra at MIT, or doing research, or majoring in Urban Planning, or advocating for a new major, or pre-med, or going abroad, or is a published writer, or is class president, on house council, is a varsity athlete, is an actress, plays the carillon, sings in the choir, is on the Quidditch team, works at the student-run restaurant, is an artist… whatever they do, they’re passionate about it, and that enthusiasm comes through so strongly. I wanted to be involved in that diversity of interests, diversity of people, and find out what I would love in the future. And after three years I have, and I know I will continue to develop. And the word I want to put down now, that’s pushing at my brain, is lucky, because that I have had this experience, that I’m still living this experience in my lifetime, is so, so lucky.
So welcome to all of the prospies! Wellesley opens her arms to you :). Also welcome to the high school juniors who are coming from Junior Open Campus tomorrow. I will be speaking at one of your morning panels, so it’ll be fun to see you all.
But heh heh heh, we’re not done yet. Because while it’s all well and good to speak in the abstract about life here, last Monday was Marathon Monday, and you’ve got to hear all about what many Wellesley students consider their favorite day of the year :).
Marathon Monday is a Massachusetts holiday, which is splendid because I didn’t even know we had state holidays before coming out here first-year :). The official name is Patriot’s Day, but it has special significance for Wellesley students because Wellesley College is at the half-way point (mile 13!) for the Boston Marathon. Every year, Wellesley students create the “Scream Tunnel”—a wall of women cheering on the wheelchair racers and runners from 8am to 4pm. Along the walls of the tunnel are signs that we’ve made to encourage runners (over 800 this year, with messages sent in as requests from friends and family across the globe.) And in many students’ hands are hand-made signs with various renditions of “Kiss me I’m ___,” because it’s Wellesley tradition to secure a kiss from one of the runners :).
And now the series of pictures begin! Marathon Monday is best told through pictures, and I admit to stealing some from my friends’ Facebook accounts :). Here we go!
Many Wellesley students head out to Boston the day before the Marathon to volunteer in all the set-up that’s required. I didn’t go, but a group of swim teammers did! Erin Y., Erin P., Keelin, Tiffany, and Suman 🙂
Very fortunately, I live in Munger, which means I literally have to walk about 100 feet before I’m at the front lines of hte Marathon :). Here’s the view as we’re looking towards Wellesley town proper– the line of cheering students/residents goes on for about a half a mile this way and a half a mile the other way.
Runners coming through! I snapped these as I was cheering on the sidelines– they’ve got a railing separating us from the runners that everyone stands on and leans out from. Kisses and high-fives are top priority :).
More runners! First the wheelchair racers go through, then the elite men and women, and then everyone else :). We take a break for lunch, since Wellesley hosts a barbeque for everyone on campus to attend :). It was opened up to the public this year for a $5 fee, which was an excellent decision!
Yeah!
Here’s some friends at the cheering line :). Annie, Karina (a swimming alum who works as a teacher in Oklahoma!) and Ika.
The Chen clan– Patricia (coming to Wellesley next year, AS IS MY SISTER! YAY!, Suman ;P, Tiffany, and Abby)
Hanging out at the barbeque :). Me, Misha, Maddie, Theresa, Ika, Karina, and Tiffany
And at the barbeque Wellesley also has bouncers :). Victorious in this line up: Tiffany and Megan.
It was a beautiful day :). Ika and Keelin. After hanging out for most of the morning and afternoon, I headed back in to study for my physics test, but I highly recommend a Marathon Monday for whoever can attend.
And one other event I attended this week, because it was a beautiful ceremony: on Wednesday, the campus celebrated the life of Kathryn Wasserman Davis ’28, a life-long Wellesley supporter who by all accounts was an amazing woman :). After some student speakers spoke on how she and her projects had touched their lives, there was a discussion by Wellesley’s presidents past and present, moderated by Lulu Chow Wang ’66. President Bottomly, previous president Diana Chapman Walsh ’66, and previous president Nannerl O. Keohane ’61 all were there to share their stories… and it was quite an experience to see people I’d only known as building names (Keohane Sports Center, the Lulu dining hall, Diana Chapman Walsh Alumni Hall) in person, scripted and unscripted. They are all wonderful speakers, funny and memorable and powerful, and a pleasure to listen to. The audience too was lovely—well-dressed older alumni hugging and settling down in chairs next to each other, asking about each other’s lives. There’s something about a hall of Wellesley alums that just makes you feel settled, bemused perhaps at the sensation, and grounded, knowing that everything in safe in their hands :).
In the Chapel, listening to the presidents :).
And one thing Kathryn Wasserman Davis had loved at Wellesley was the swing outside the Chapel, which was removed a long time ago. When she visited campus again at her last Reunion, she insisted on having it put up again, and now it is back where it belongs :). Erin on the swing, decorated in Kathryn Davis’s class color of red :).
And that’s all I have, readers. Well, that and a math test in a few hours ;P. Alas those quotidian tasks that give my life its scope and fullness :).
Pleasure to write to you, and I hope I see some of you in the coming days! Wishing you all a beautiful spring day,
Monica
