The Trail

Issue date: 3/9/07 Section: A&E

You looked at all the pamphlets. You took a campus tour. You met with admissions representatives and sat in on a class or two.There was no question about it: UPS was the school for you.
And at this point, it still is. Sure, you may have dealt with a crazy kid or two in your residence hall, eaten your share of funky SUB food, written the ten page paper from hell and been asked, "What can brown do for you?" by five thousand witty family friends. But regardless, it has been a fun ride.

Still, a year or four after enduring the admissions process, one cannot help but think back on the preconceived notions we all developed when we first made our choice to become Loggers, and how quickly they wore off.

Between the website, the tour guides and the full-color brochures, there were bound to be some little embellishments here and there.

These myths are minor and harmless, but definitely worth a giggle now that we are here and love it anyway.
Let us take a look at a couple of the misconceptions you may have had before joining the world of Puget Sound.
Myth #1: UPS students like to study on the beautiful green UPS grass.

Everyone who has ever opened a UPS brochure has seen the pictures of students sitting or flopped on their stomachs in the middle of a quad with books and laptops and pencils and smiles. The sun is always shining, the grass is always growing and Puget Sound students always appear to be creating a beautiful, happy, outdoor academic community.

It seems like a nice idea. And there are some elements of it that do ring true. UPS students are (generally) friendly and smiley. Many do love the outdoors. And most of them spend at least some of a given day doing homework, sometimes in big grinning study groups like the ones pictured.

The problem? Everyone who has ever veered off the path for a shortcut through the grass knows that beneath the inviting green carpet lies a dangerous species of mud that can only be bred from the combination of Pacific Northwest rain and excessive watering. Even in August, there are places to avoid. And between October and May, (which, I may add, encompasses virtually the whole school year), the whole area turns into a giant swamp that probably claims more socks than all the residence hall dryers combined.

As part of my myth-busting experiment, I asked my friend Amelia Thornton to come with me and see what studying in the grass would really be like.

It was your average drizzly Tacoma day at about noon, and we chose to have our faux academic powwow in the middle of the South Quad. I asked Amelia to lie on her stomach and look over my binder for a few minutes, then to stand back up again.
The results, though not at all shocking, were pretty unfortunate. Amelia's feet, shirt, jeans, hands and chin were covered in muck, and the front cover of my binder was in equally bad shape.

It definitely did not make me want to bring my notes and laptop out to study, and I began to rethink my choice to wear anything but disposable clothing around campus. It was pretty obvious that if I ever happened to trip in the grass, my entire outfit would be a goner.

Myth #2: Maroon Friday
Every time you walk past the little electronic reader board by the SUB, there it is in big, bold, red, all-caps lettering: EVERY FRIDAY IS MAROON FRIDAY!

When I first arrived at UPS, I figured this was one of three things: either students were supposed to dress in maroon to show their school spirit, professors were supposed to dress in maroon to spice up casual Friday, or that something on campus that was not ordinarily maroon became decorated with it. I finally found the explanation on the UPS website: "Every Friday at Puget Sound is Maroon Friday as folks on campus show Logger pride and spirit by wearing the traditional Maroon and White."

This made sense. My next question was: Who and where are the people who actually do this?The fact of the matter is, you will always see a decent amount of kids around campus in maroon and white simply because most students own at least one Puget Sound hoodie and they generally wear little else. But as far as students who actually dress in maroon intentionally, I have yet to encounter any outside of sporting events.

The issue is not that students lack Logger pride, rather, many of us just feel that it goes without saying. After all, agreeing to live at school is a pretty large pledge of spirit.

To examine the impact of Maroon Friday, I made a mental note of the number of people in my 9 a.m. class on Monday and Wednesday decked out in their UPS duds. Monday had one, Wednesday had three. On Friday, I faithfully forwent my Snoopy sweatshirt for my solid maroon UPS one and spirited my way on over to Wyatt.

One other girl in my class was sporting a Puget Sound sweatshirt. The rest were wearing whatever they had managed to grab out of their school-issue set of drawers in the dark without waking up their roommate.

In other words, pretty typical attire for a 9 a.m. class at the end of the week, and little maroon in sight.The point? UPS is an awesome university with plenty of stimulating classes, great teachers, fun classmates and fantastic opportunities to get involved.

Any reason you would realistically come to a college, we have going for us at UPS. Just be sure to wear your maroon whenever you want, and for God's sake, avoid the grass.

• Jessi Wyse is facing a dodo's conundrum.

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