Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr College Students

Dining Services

During your time at Bryn Mawr you will grow and in more ways than one; dining services sees to that freshman year, as your waistline bears the effects of five-star meals in your choice of three full-service dining halls and two student-operated cafes. The food is truly spectacular, offering award-winning creations for all tastes—vegan, vegetarian, or carnivorous. Haffner is home to the rotating “international bar” where you can sample such delicacies as Pho noodles or Tapas. Erdman is the largest of the halls, open for three meals a day. Inside its cavernous halls you’ll find a spectacular offering of ice cream and fro-yo (with toppings) and a short-order line for when all you really want is a good burger. Rhodes, the smallest, is the most traditional in appearance with wood-paneled walls, leaded windows, and chandeliers, but it gets crowded because it stays open late to feed hungry athletes returning from the battlefield. Get there early for a seat and expect to cozy up to a neighbor.

Fitness Center

Never fear: there is a fully equipped fitness center to take care of the aforementioned “growth,” not to mention twelve varsity athletic teams, a rugby club, and, oh right, that pesky Phys. Ed. Requirement (see sidebar or details). Active minds need active bodies so put down that book and join a dance or yoga class, if the commitment of Division III sports isn’t for you. And once you curb your enthusiasm over the free-for-all dining experience, the growing is more figurative than substantive.

Student Body

Bryn Mawr challenges you in unexpected ways, both academically and interpersonally. Campus life is a close-knit network of relationships that encourages you to coexist with women from multifarious backgrounds and viewpoints, some of which you may never have been exposed to before. With more than forty-nine states and forty-three countries represented in the student body, you’re sure to meet some incredible young women with whom you’ll forge a lasting bond of friendship. To help ease the transition from high school to college, Bryn Mawr’s Residential Life department sorts incoming students into hall groups throughout the thirteen residence halls, each a uniquely charming building in varying architectural styles, matching them with roommates based on a compatibility questionnaire. A hall group consists of ten to twenty-two freshwomen living in traditional doubles, triples, or quads (and in some dwindling cases, singles) who are watched over by two upperclasswomen called Customs People.

Customs People

The Customs People are usually energetic sophomores or juniors who encourage socializing on the hall during orientation week and carry out the role of “big sister” and counselor throughout the year. They are also the sources behind “hall teas,” a hangover from the days of petticoats and, well, high tea, though now the ritual frequently revolves around junk food or hot cocoa before packing the frosh off to study. As far as dorm life is concerned, you couldn’t ask for a better setup than Bryn Mawr. It’s all women sharing the bathroom, which is about as close to collegiate heaven as it gets. But be advised, despite the Victorian grandeur, traditional bunk beds are still a part of the first-year experience if you’re placed in a triple or quad, but there are also perks such as oversized window seats with sweeping views of campus, or ornate (nonworking) fireplaces. Remember: John D. Rockefeller’s niece went here so you know the digs are pretty sweet.

The Customs People are overseen by one Hall Advisor, generally a senior, who is the equivalent of an RA at larger universities. She is more of a “hall mother,” responsible for the practical things such as hall maintenance and checking in with the housekeeper, coordinating Hell Week events with the other HAs in the building, and overseeing the traditions budget for the year. There are also class quotas on each hall to ensure that no dorm or section of a building is exclusively for freshwomen or exclusively for seniors. There’s a little Quaker process called Room Draw that sees to that. (Freshwomen don’t go through it until the end of their first year.) It is worth noting that your hall group is your introduction to life on the Mawr and many Mawrters form the closest bonds with their original hall mates, while others remain friendly over the next three years but move on to live with other people. It all depends on the luck of the draw but the personal evaluations help the process of matching up roommates. Plus, it’s a nice confidence boost to have a built-in network of upperclasswomen when you’re just a “froshling” on campus.

There are nearly one-hundred clubs and student-run organizations available for the joining. Part of the beauty of self-government is the privilege of a healthy activities budget so if, by some miracle, you don’t see the club for you already listed, you have the opportunity to create your own. From political and religious groups to community service and culturally based clubs, there’s something for everyone. In addition to student-run activities, the Residential Life office sponsors some pretty amazing day-trips to New York, Philadelphia, a shuttle to King of Prussia Mall, event nights with Karaoke, Guitar Hero, and perhaps Wii, so you don’t even have to leave campus if you don’t want to. There are humanitarian-minded weekends of service sponsored by community service organizations that anyone can participate in. The options are all there but you have to take the initiative.

Career Development Office

Similarly, Bryn Mawr’s Career Development Office is an oft-overlooked gem that has access to several databases listing over 2,000 internships and externships with alumnae. Take advantage of this incredible resource during your first two years and you’ll be happy you did when it comes time for the real job hunt. While Bryn Mawr doesn’t generally offer academic credit for summers of service, you make up for it in real-world contacts that will open doors you didn’t even know existed. There’s free peer counseling or you can schedule an appointment with a career coach to go over interviewing skills and resumes. The bonds of sisterhood truly do extend into the workplace and you’re sure to meet some incredibly talented and accomplished Mawrters along your life’s journey, beginning with apprenticeships and leading to bigger and better things beyond.

Katharine Hepburn once remarked that Bryn Mawr ‘isn’t nylon, isn’t plastic, but is pure gold.’ During my four years there, I met the most intelligent, dedicated, and determined women (whether in the classroom, the chem lab, or rowing on the Schuykill) with whom I had ever or will ever come in contact. They became some of my best friends. I also had the opportunity to lead discussion in small, intensive English classes and pursue original research as an undergraduate with various faculty members supported by the college’s Hanna Holborn Gray Fellowship. These experiences more than prepared me for graduate education and my future responsibilities teaching undergraduates of my own. If you want the best and brightest, the pure gold standard, you should absolutely choose Bryn Mawr.

Traditions

Traditions are an integral part of the Mawrter’s experience and essential to understanding the bonds of sisterhood. A word of caution: Some people take them really, really seriously and others don’t get into it at all. In typical Bryn Mawr spirit, you will never be forced to participate in anything that makes you uncomfortable but you should definitely give them a shot. The main traditions are as follows: Parade Night takes place the first night of classes when unwitting first years run the gauntlet through sophomores spraying water guns/throwing water balloons, “sympathetic juniors” toss candy at you to make it all better, and seniors stand around in various states of sobriety because they are “apathetic” and have seen this three times before. It’s wacky, it’s fun, it’s a bit of light humor to start the year off right.

The next tradition is appropriately placed around Halloween. Lantern Night brings out the witch in every woman, as we dress up in seriously antique “bat robes” from the turn of the century, chant Greek hymns to the goddess Athena, and prepare to receive the ultimate emblem of Bryn Mawrterdom—the mighty lantern. Each class is assigned a color corresponding to the four elements (light blue for air, dark blue for water, green for earth, and red for fire.) The panes of glass in your lantern will match your class color and make you a bonafide, recognizable Bryn Mawr alum when you take it out into the world. This is a highly symbolic evening, as it is your official welcome to the class of 20__. Many people lose it, emotionally, so tuck some tissues into your little bat wing.

A few other favorite traditions include the mother of them all, Hell Week, where freshwomen prove if they really have what it takes to stick it out for another three years (just kidding! It’s fun!) as their sophomore “hellers” give them tasks to complete, ranging from the daring to the moderately humiliating. Example: Ever proposed to your calculus professor in front of a roomful of peers? This is a true bonding experience, rewarded with a pancake breakfast at IHOP after you run your buns off at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning to the Haverford Duck Pond. Did I mention this is fun? Finally, there’s May Day to close out the year.

On the first Sunday after classes end in spring, Mawrters and their professors take to Merion Green to welcome in the May with ye olde faire on the lawn. There are four poles erected for the four classes, each with appropriately colored ribbon, and there’s a “May Hole” for the more progressive-minded where you can toss flower petals and listen to Dar Williams until your heart is content. It’s a daylong picnic with performances and music and merriment culminating in a feast to rival Henry VIII’s finest, as well as a midnight screening of “The Philadelphia Story.”

From the moment you arrive on campus, the observant freshwoman will note the many owls carved into the stone archways throughout the forty campus buildings. The owl is Athena’s totem, an emblem of wisdom. Athena is Bryn Mawr’s patron goddess and indeed, her effigy stands in the far right corner of Thomas Great Hall. It is a copy of the original statue from antiquity that was damaged by some errant Haverfordians in the 1970s. The original Athena survived the misguided prank and now rests safely in a niche high above Carpenter library.