Freshman Traditions
“Welcoming Beginning”
| Caroline Foster Charlottesville, VA Fall 2018 |
Informant Data:
Caroline Foster was born in Atlanta, Georgia on August 5, 1999. After Atlanta, she later moved to Stockholm Sweden for a few years. When she was 10 years old, she moved back to the US and now lives in Charlotte, NC. She attended Charlotte Country Day School middle and high school. And she is currently studying Commerce at the University of Virginia.Caroline is a member of the class of 2022. Outside of her academics, Caroline is an amazing musician and loves to sing and play the guitar. Caroline is also a very sociable person and has a niche for speaking French. She is a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.
Contextual Data:
Cultural Context:
The University of Virginia, UVA, was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson. UVA is located in Charlottesville, Virginia and is the state’s flagship school. UVA’s men basketball team with the 2019 national champions. In addition to their strong athletics and academics, UVA is known for its secret societies, historic foundations, and student-run honor code. There are currently has 16,655 undergraduates enrolled.
Social Context:
There are certain criteria that the freshman experience entire year. Freshman usually undergo typical traditions like freshman orientation. University of Virginia has special traditions and rites of passages to welcome the freshman into the community in addition to the social and athletic events.
Item:
UVA offers a lot of resources and organizations to help first year students feel welcome and help them transition into college life. All the people involved with welcoming freshmen moving in are extremely kind, welcoming and enthusiastic to make the transition easier. Caroline felt incorporated into UVA once she knew about 5 friends, was introduced to UVA’s jargon, learned the building’s locations, and fully understood how to work UVA’s website. Until she fully understood these concepts, she felt like an outsider. Some traditions that help freshmen feel welcome in the community are learning the “Good Ole Song”, tailgating and going to football games, the club fair, and trick or treating on the lawn. UVA does not have any specific rites of passage for freshmen. At a large university like UVA traditions are important to bring together the community and give past and present classes something to relate to. Other traditions at UVA are more formal like lighting on the lawn and others more informal like streaking the lawn. Most of these traditions are passed on through word of mouth.
Transcript:
“Not knowing all of these components at first certainly made me feel like an outcast and a confused newbee, but I really do feel as though once I mastered them, I felt like a welcomed member of the UVA community.”
“I think that school traditions are important because they bond a community of like-minded students especially at a school as big as Virginia, it is really awesome to be able to relate to any student, past or present, about certain traditions such as: lighting of the lawn, trick-or-treating on the lawn, snowball fights on the lawn on the first snow day, streaking the lawn. joining a secret society, painting Beta Bridge, and singing the Good Old Song at every celebrated event.”
Collector’s Comments:
UVA has a lot of rich traditions. Some of which are not all open to freshmen. Being a bigger school, I think it is harder for UVA to have a lot of organized events for the entire school. Teaching the freshmen the “Good Ole Song” reminds me of the Bema ceremony during freshmen orientation. In this ceremony all of the freshmen learn the Dartmouth alma mater. The “Good Ole Song’ is something that all UVA students must know similar to Dartmouth’s alma mater. Dartmouth also has a club fair like UVA where students can get introduced to new opportunities. Tailgating and attending sports games, however, is not as popular at Dartmouth. I would not say that sports games are an important part of the school’s culture. Dartmouth is similar to UVA that to really feel like a student here you need to understand the school website (Darthub/canvas), the language (foco, 3fb, hop), and the locations of the building.
| Caroline K. Jones 19 Dartmouth College Russian 13 Spring 2019 |