On the occasion of the mailing of thousands of admissions letters to regular-decision applicants to Tufts, it is worth examining the life at Tufts that will meet those who decide to take the leap onto the Hill. A record-low 18.7 percent of students have been accepted to a school in a time of both tumult and hopeful plans for the long term of great debate and change. Accepted students have the blessing of feeling expectant and positive about the school about which many of them dreamed, talked, and proselytized for months. Freshmen and prospective students arrive with bright eyes and deservedly so. Yet nearly all are unaware of the events and issues that drive our student life and what life on the hill means in 2013. Consider this an open letter to those accepted students to the Class of 2017.
The campus has a life to it that Admissions cannot necessarily capture with brochures and videos. In the past year, issues ranging from a push for divestment from fossil fuel companies to religious freedom and racial justice. Students some of whom will graduate in May have occupied Ballou Hall, started new groups and voiced their strongly felt opinions on Facebook, Twitter and in op-ed after op-ed. Theyve created mock West Bank security checkpoints on the library steps and successfully petitioned for sustainability-themed specialty housing. Religious tenets have clashed with cries of discrimination, and trays have not been seen in Dewick or Carmichael for over three years. Tufts life today means being aware of the events always on the periphery of ones sight or hearing, yet entirely within reach. A meeting of the minds brews under the surface around each corner, while the bustling noise of the dining hall muffles the noises of dissatisfaction and debate at a long table near the windows.
This is not to say that citizens of Tufts arent all as active as the Tisch College would have us believe. Its possible to skate through four years at Tufts without seeking out the challenge of finding and fixing what is troublesome here. The challenge for accepted students, whether theyre still deciding to come to Medford or theyve made the decision and are preparing for move-in day already is to be the former. To get the most out of Tufts, be the one who pays attention. It wont be easy swallowing the brochure image of this place without question is the painless way to go, and the hard questions may not always yield happy answers.
Life at Tufts is not as scripted as Admissions officers advertises. It does not fall into simple conventions. Students are not all activist heroes or chanting in the streets. Nor are they entirely apathetic. They are not solely partiers or shut-ins, athletes or actors, or any other definitive quality. The students that make Tufts what it is challenge their university to better itself year in and year out. They challenge things that they believe to be wrong even if they are often wrong themselves. Climbing the Hill this way the hard way is about exposing oneself to a campus with innumerable worldviews and as many problems as reasons to celebrate. It is about taking that step into the periphery of interests and events at a university of incredibly varied passions. It is about having a desire to affect ones surroundings, to think deeply and experience the pursuit of ones interests to the utmost. Tufts is more than just being an international relations and biology double major or having an Experimental College or a president that sleds with students in the winter. Tufts is an act left forever unfinished, an amalgamation of passions and visions built up year after year. Being a Jumbo means playing a part in finishing it.
