This post is way overdue, but the past week leading up to graduation was Senior Week — a time for the seniors to celebrate their end of finals and last few days at the college. Our class presidents Priyanka and Hannah planned a week full of fun activities and trips. Senior Week also consists of some unique Bryn Mawr traditions. I had a lot of fun spending time with my friends and my fellow classmates.
Unlike the rest of the undergrad students, seniors must finish their finals within the first week of finals. This is so the college can calculate class honors and graduation paperwork. The deadline for all senior work was Saturday May 6th at 5pm. Some seniors finish as early as Monday right after May Day, while most finish later in the week. Once a senior is done with ALL her work, Bryn Mawr tradition allows her to ring the Taylor Hall bell. Although the bell is very, very heavy, many seniors attempt to ring the bell as many times as their graduating year: 17 for 2017. I finished May 5th, but I did not ring the bell until May 7th because I wanted to ring the bell with my friends. We took turns ringing the bell and taking cute photos and videos of each other.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BT0F3-LlX0w/?taken-by=mir88cee
Senior week officially started right after the senior deadline. Our class presidents planned a week full of events (listed in photo below), but each senior is only allowed to pick and attend a maximum of 3 off-campus activities. I picked bowling (I ended up not going), senior dinner cruise, and Cuba Libre salsa bar. I also attended the Senior Cocktails, the Bubble Tea movie event, the Pool Party & Food Trucks event, and the Tassel Toast.
I like to think that any event can be good if you’re in good company with good food. Pretty much all senior week events are like that, so I was set.
Senior cocktails was “fire” themed and seniors showed up in red or black outfits ready to drink the peach cocktails and eat the cheese and meat platters, brownie, cannoli, cream puff platter, and fruits and vegetables platter. The Legally Blonde event was actually the bubble tea event with a movie on the side. Over 200 cups of bubble tea were delivered to Thomas Great Hall from Teassert and seniors went CRAZY grabbing their cups of bubble tea from a selection of matcha green tea, coffee, mango, and classic milk tea. I got a cup of coffee and classic. The senior dinner cruise was at Moshulu, a docked sail boat on the waterfront near Penn’s Landing. If you couldn’t tell already, dressing up and eating is a popular pairing. For the pool party and food truck event, Lil Pop Shop and The Farm Truck parked outside of the gym for 3 straight hours serving up endless gourmet popsicles, mac and cheese, avocado toast, salad, chicken sliders, and grilled asparagus. The weather was perfect that day, so we all sat outside on the grass in the warm sun. Later that day, my friends and I headed to Cuba Libre. We ordered drinks to celebrate my roommate May’s 21st birthday and snacked on some appetizers (flan, cookies, fruit, bread pudding, rice pudding, and some savory hors d’oeuvres). On Thursday, seniors received their tassels and champagne flutes at Wyndham at an event hosted by the Alumnae Association. There were also cupcakes served.
And finally on Friday, we had our commencement rehearsal and convocation. In addition to the official senior week festivities, I worked 2 more days at my internship at Center for Asian Health, attended the Physics seniors night out with my physics professors, the Dance seniors lunch at Wyndham with the Director Dr. Linda Caruso Haviland and Assistant Director Mady Cantor, and wrote thank you/goodbye letters to my bosses and professors. I also took part in a photo shoot with my roommates in our regalia because it was highly likely to rain on graduation. On top of that, I started packing up my belongings and cleaning up my room (and free boxing because I couldn’t resist!).
Even though there were no more classes, senior week was quite jam packed busy and productive, in a good way!