EXPLAINING CMC TO PEOPLE WHO DON’T GO TO CMC: CIVILIZATION PROSPERS WITH COMMERCE. AND CHEAP BEER.

Hey there, Non CMC-er, it’s me.  That person you want to strangle for posting “80 degrees outside & tanning at da poooool” as my status in January.  That’s right, I went to Southern California for college.  Oh what…you’ve never heard of my school?  Get in line.  Let me try to condense it (and offend as many parties as possible) in one blog post.  Our dorms look like motels.  You can stand on one side of our campus saying “microfinance rules!” and be heard on the other side of campus without raising your voice.  Oh yeah, and we inflated our SAT scores?

There was a stretch of three or four weeks when the party themes all incorporated the word ‘ho’ or some variation. It was “CEO’s and Office Ho’s” or “Gym Bros and Yoga Hos” and so on.  Believe me, I get it, rhyming is alluring.  (Upon consulting rhymezone.com, ‘ho’ is infinitely easier to rhyme than ‘girls with low self-esteem.’) I have some new ideas along those lines.  How about “Santas and Ho Ho Ho Ho’s” or “Hostess Cakes and Ho Ho Ho’s”  Girls drizzled in icing?  Yeah, I thought you’d be interested.  Get at me Steve Limbreaskdjhasjh, get at me.  Still, I give the party planners some credit, it’s hard to come up with a new party twice a week when all we’re working with is basically a couple feet of concrete and a beer-soaked lounge.  I think CMC should fuse together some of its key values.  Next week, Career Services will join with ASCMC to host TNC.  Slap on those pearls ladies, don’t leave the pregame without a tie gents; the dress code is business professional.  You have thirty seconds to give your pitch as to why you deserve to down that cocktail.  No summer internship yet? Kegstand until Google gets back to you. I’m sorry, is that Comic Sans I see on your resume? Do four shots or GTFO.  We may play hard, but there’s no reason not to network hard too.

It happened, we acknowledge that.  (Pam Gann, you still earn a 2500 in my book.) And now we’re at that joking stage where we can laugh about it!  Granted, it’s that joking stage where we go back home and cry ourselves to sleep at night but hey, baby steps.  The Sagehens – our arch rivals for all you outsiders – have been known to chant “S-A-T! S-A-T!” which, of course, we cannot understand because our SAT Verbal scores were greatly embellished. In reality most of us cant read past the first grade level.  Your move, Pomona.  Sports games?  Not always the classiest of affairs.  CMC may be full of bros, but they also happen to be ridiculously smart bros.  Where other schools might yell, “Hey, CMC, you suck balls you stupid buttheads!” we stags have been known to call out, “Hey Whittier, go find some desks to climb on, because it’s bout to be a Dead Poets’ Society up in here wha-whaaaat!”  Only joking, we would never yell that.  But only because it has too many syllables.

Bro Tank: (n) a boxy garment intended for males that includes vague (or explicit) references to alcohol and/or charitable causes.

You gleefully spent your twelve dollars and you have that fluorescent monstrosity in your hot little hands…now where do you wear it?  Why yes, future employer, the back of my shirt does humbly apologize for “party-rocking.”  No mother, that’s not a keg, that’s a barrel full of knowledge and understanding.  Bro tanks, they seem so fun at the time, but they’re really only flattering if you’re jacked out of your mind.  Which, heads up, I am.

Any tour guide worth her money (trick question, they actually don’t get paid) will tell you that the consortium works together like a glorious friendship bracelet woven together through mutual understanding, a learning environment that fosters teamwork, and a little game we like to call the 5C challenge.  (Where are you Mudd boys?? Call me.  Seriously.)  The main places we mix are the dining halls, but even then we’re constantly trying to categorize each other.  New drinking game: Sit at the entrance to a dining hall with a small erasable white board and try to guess what school people go to as they walk by.  Take a drink every time you get it wrong.  The game wont last long, trust me.  Mostly because you will get punched in the face.  Harvey Mudd girls wont want you to assume they go to CMC any more than CMC girls want you to guess they’re from Scripps. The only thing harder than being the victim of a college stereotype is to try to change it.  One girl leans over to another at a party, “I hear CMC girls will do ANYTHING to get start a charity feeding third world children.”  Cue knowing nod and judgmental eye roll.  A guy nudges his friend, “Bro, that Scrippsie is an intelligent, proud, motivated young woman who can do anything she sets her mind to.”  Let me know when you overhear that conversation.   Cough cough…but seriously we all get along….cough cough…harmony….there are no negative stereotypes.  Scissor me friendship?

 As for the weather, you’re never gonna hear the end of that from me.  Yeah, your East Coast school is higher ranked than mine…but my skin has a higher amount of melanin.  Yeah, I went there.  We’re Stags (Athenas?) and yeah, you’ve never heard of us.  Hell, we like it better that way.

– Clancy Tripp

April 2012