How Quirky are we, Really??

On a Zoom call for prospective students earlier this week, someone asked, “What makes Carleton special?” Emphatically, all current students agreed that it’s special because we’re all weird here, and we embrace that!

Some of my favorite weird things about campus:

1. We kind of have a mascot, but we also kind of have three (give or take). Officially, we are the Knights! However, there’s a tradition for a new student week leader to dress up in a cow costume to welcome incoming students, and we take pride in loving cows (as does our home town of Northfield). There’s also a stuffed penguin in the Libe named Oscar who is absolutely iconic.
2. We have a weird habit of stealing and randomly displaying a bust of a German poet, Schiller. It is every Carl’s goal to find and steal him, and we take great pride in this! Senior Katie Landacre writes a great blog article about her experience with Schiller, here. I’ve yet to see him, but I’m always on the lookout!
3. The Primal Scream has to be my favorite (very weird) thing about Carleton. At 10:00PM the night before finals start, the entire campus screams. It’s terrifying if you don’t know what’s going on, but hilarious if you do! Not to mention, it’s a much needed way to let out stress.
4. Last week, tiny plastic babies made an appearance all over Nourse: on the soap dispensers, floating in the basket of an “air-balloon” in the hall, and “making food” in the kitchen. We have no idea where they came from, and they left just as abruptly as they came. It was not questioned.
5. We have several satire groups on campus, including The Salt and The CLAP. The CLAP is basically black and white printed memes, and is probably the most well-read source on campus.

   

6. Conversations here are wild. My roommate and I argued about whether Aristotle or Machiavelli had better logic for a good hour… and at some point this turned into an argument about which shape is superior: triangles or parallelograms.
7. Finally, we’re college students! This means that by nature, we lack common sense, which makes for a great deal of entertainment. Yes, I am a proud Carl; no, I still don’t understand how to work the toaster in the dining hall, LDC. (In my defense, it looks so scary!)

If you choose Carleton, these are just some of the quirky things you will experience here.

Erin grew up catching salamanders, recklessly climbing trees, and running around barefoot in the Appalachian Mountains in a small town in North Carolina. This is her first year at Carleton, and she’s looking forward to meeting new people, exploring campus (especially the arb!), and experiencing her first Minnesota winter. She is currently interested in studying psychology and gender, women’s, and sexuality studies. Meet the other bloggers!