Smith College’s campus is a botanical garden. In other words, our campus is a living museum of plants. The plants are therefore labeled and documented. Over a century ago, Laurenus Clarke Seelye, Smith College’s first president, founded the botanical garden. The focuses of a botanical garden are education, research, and conversation. Beyond its scientific value, having a botanical garden adds aesthetic value to our campus. Plants are organized outdoors in gardens such as the Rock garden and Capen Gaden. In addition to the outdoor gardens, we have the Lyman Conservatory (a.k.a. the plant house), the Church Exhibition Gallery, and the campus arboretum. The gardens and greenhouses are open to the public year-round. Currently, there is an exhibit entitled “The Art and Science of Dyeing”. There is also an annual bulb show in March.
This semester, I had the opportunity to visit the plant house for two different classes. In my First-Year Seminar (FYS 193, Red Devil and Pink Ribbons: Representations and Refutations of Cancer), we visited the plant house to learn about medicinal plants associated with cancer treatment. We learned about ginger root, Madagascar periwinkle, mayapple, and the yew tree. In my French class (FRN 120), we learned about child slavery in the chocolate industry. For an assignment, we visited the cacao tree in the plant house with a partner. The task was record observations/ answer questions, in French, about the tree.
Today is the last day of reading period and with that comes some fun traditions. Reading period is the four days between the last day of classes and the start of finals. It is basically a designated time for studying and writing papers. Professors can not assign work to be due during reading period and club meetings are canceled. Going into reading period, I had already finished three of my five classes. This is because some of my classes had exams or papers due on the last day of class.
At 8 p.m. Hubbardites gathered in the living room to pick up house apparel. This year we ordered black hoodies with white ink. There is a bat on the front in honor of Egg Roll, the bat that was in our house at the start of the year. Egg Roll is our unofficial mascot. The bat was drawn by a fellow Hubbardite. The back of the sweatshirt shows the front of Hubbard House.
Once the sweatshirts were distributed, the Hubbard tradition of sock wrestling began. In sock wresting, two people wrestle with each other with the goal of removing the other person’s sock. Sock wrestling is hard to describe, but epic is one word that comes to mind. In the background music played through my speaker and we all cheered and laughed. It’s a really weird but super fun tradition that is unique to Hubbard House.
A little before 10 o’clock, we went out on to the porch for Primal Scream. Primal Scream is where students across campus scream at the top of their lungs. The purpose of it is to scream away the stress. While my throat is still a bit sore from both the cheering and screaming, I had a lot of fun. Other great traditions at Smith College are Mountain Day and Celebration.
Anonymous asked what do you think are the major differences between smith and mt holyoke? i feel like they come across similar on paper but i’m sure they have different vibes / people and such
Smith and Mount Holyoke are pretty similar in a lot of ways, but are definitely different. If you’re able to, I’d visit both and ask the students at each lot of questions to discern which feels like a better fit for you.
Three of the major differences are size, location, and curriculum. Smith has more students than Mount Holyoke, but a smaller campus. On the other hand, Smith is located in Northampton, which has considerably more things to do in-town than South Hadley, where Mount Holyoke is. The third major difference is the curriculum- Smith has an open curriculum, Mount Holyoke does not. Smith’s open curriculum means that we don’t have any distribution requirements (other than a writing intensive to be completed during your first year this can be done with a first year seminar). However, both schools have access to the amazing five college consortium and the PVTA (free for five college students). Hope this helps!
With the first big storm of the season, and lots of people unable to return to campus from Thanksgiving break, we got to have a snow day!! I’ve been in the snow plenty before in the mountains just outside of Los Angeles, but I’ve never had a snow day called before so I decided that I would go out and make the most of it (ask me how I feel about the snow in few weeks, I doubt I’ll be as excited about it hahaha).
In the morning I walked for a bit in the woods on the path that continues beyond paradise pond, it was absolutely beautiful to be outside in a literal winter wonderland, and it’s always refreshing to spend time outdoors.
Later a friend and I went downtown for coffee, after which we came back to build snowmen on the quad lawn and had a MASSIVE snowball fight. We then spent some time sledding down this massive hill on campus we call hospital hill. Because it’s past the athletic fields it was a bit of a trek, but honestly so worth it.
I surprisingly felt comfortable despite how long I was outside in the cold, I just made sure to be properly bundled up. Adaptation is happening! It was such a perfect day, and honestly some of the most fun I’ve had yet here. Now we begin the countdown to finals and holiday break.
I have been blogging since June and it has been a blast! In that time, I have posted a total of 26 blog posts. I first discovered the Smith by Smithies blog while researching colleges. It was a great resource to learn more about Smith College and Smithies. In May of my senior year, I revisited the Smith by Smithies blog and saw the below posting. I had no prior experience with blogging or even regular social media. I also did not particularly like writing, nonetheless, I went ahead and emailed the social media intern. I liked the idea of already being involved before arriving on campus. I also thought it would be a cool way to document my time in college for myself, my family, and friends. Furthermore, I was hoping my blog could help prospective students.
I have been blogging since before I started college. At first, it seemed like a strange idea, but it was a great way to document my summer. Blogging is something I genuinely look forward to unless I am really stuck coming up with a topic. Blogging encourages me to think about what I am doing day to day and has also increased the number of photos I take. I love that my blog has the potential to help others, but that even if no one reads it it is worth my time. In terms of site statistics, I currently have 14 official followers along with others who I know read my blog but don’t have Tumblr. It would be awsome to increase these statistics, but really that’s not the point. That being said, I do track which posts get reblogged by Smith by Smithies.
I have consistently posted once a week. The trick has been to plan ahead, keep my blog in mind, and never post twice in a week. To plan ahead (and keep track of old posts) I created a spreadsheet. The document contains two sheets: posts and ideas. In my spreadsheet, future posts have a topic and a deadline (the Sunday of the week they are for). I plan future posts by using my ideas list and calendar. If there is nothing scheduled in a given week, I keep my blog in the forefront of my mind as I go through my week. Posting only once a week allows the blog to be manageable and sustainable. Timeliness is really important to me, so if something post-worthy happens, I want a post published within a few days. Sometimes I have multiple blog posts in progress. For instance, I actually started writing parts of this post quite a while ago.
My blog is very informal, which makes writing easier and more enjoyable. I love that I have full control over the topic and format of my posts. I also love using links, especially to my other posts. Yes, it’s shameless self-promotion! Looking forward, I plan to continue my weekly posts (at least for this school year). I also want to have a good balance of advice and just documenting my college experience. I also hope to incorporate more photos.
We’ve had some pretty snowy days at Smith recently! It rained earlier this week which melted a lot of the snow, but it there’s still a good amount on the ground and it’s absolutely beautiful!
In early November we had registration! Here are my classes:
ENG 260 Milton with Jessica Beckman
English majors have to take Milton, Shakespeare or Chaucer, so I’m taking Milton! We’ve read a bit in ENG 200 and I’ve really enjoyed Paradise Lost. Beckman is also one of my favorite teachers at Smith (10/10 would recommend). She’s a visiting professor, but we all hope Smith will give her a tenure track position. I cannot say enough good things about her!
SOC 101 Introduction to Sociology
I’ve never taken a Sociology class so I figured I’d try it! I’ve heard great things about the entire department, and have been really curious about more advanced classes in the future.
HST 217 World War Two in East Asia: History and Memory with Marnie S. Anderson
This class looks super interesting and I’ve heard great things about the teacher so I signed up for it! I love history and will definitely be taking more history classes during my time at Smith. If I take 1 history class next semester, I’ll only have to take 1 more to fulfill the minor requirements! However, because of Smith’s open curriculum I could feasibly still double major in English and History! Stay tuned to see if I do :)
ENG 125 Intro to Creative Writing with Sara London
I’m an English major with a Creative Writing emphasis! For my major, I’m required to take a bunch of creative writing classes. While I don’t need a lower level creative writing class, and have already taken more advanced classes, I want to take intro creative writing to work on strengthening my fiction and poetry, and be a more confident writer! My strongest area of writing is my creative non-fiction, so this will be a fun way to sharpen my skills.
ESS 920-01 Fencing I with Scott Tundermann
ESS 960-04 Racket Sports: Tennis I with Caitlyn Lawrence
I’m currently registered for Tennis and Fencing! I’m only planning to take one, but I can’t make up my mind!
ESS 940-03 Outdoor Skills: Rock Climb 1 with Stefanie Frazee
I’m waitlisted for this, but hopefully I can get in! If I get in it will be my only class on Fridays.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how this might be my last ever New England Fall… so I’ve been trying to savor the run up to the holidays as much as possible. This semster, I’ve drank more chaider than ever before, stopped for longer to step on crunchy leaves, and, of course, ran outside to take in the sunsets.
Skies like this always remind me how beautiful it is that I am here. I’ve said this before on this blog, but my journey to and through Smith - from working-class industrial England to a top-tier American university - is the thing in my life I am most proud of. Sunsets like this remind me of being a first year, stopping on the top step of the Chapin staircase to admire the colors on my way to my room. They remind me that hard times are worth it to be able to see cool things in cool places.
So, I’m looking back on these photos from a few weeks ago to remind me that finals and grades and a good GPA are not the only reasons I’m here. I’m here because I want to experience everything the world has to offer, whether that’s through education, travel, and navigating a life of firsts. Sometimes, that means putting down the books and running outside without a coat to take some pictures. I think those are the moments I’ll remember most.
Anonymous asked
