Sophomore Year

Share with us below your your memories of your sophomore year. For example,


Here are some memories we have already collected about our senior year. Add your own below.

  • Housing:
    • Rents were $30-$100 per month, sometimes including utilities and meals.
    • Landlords hesitated to rent to unmarried women, or required parents to sign leases.
    • Co-ed housing was still experimental
  • Encountering diversity (geographic, religious, ethnic, racial, sexual
  • Sleeping out for hockey season tickets
  • Free roaming dogs
  • Local movie theaters
  • Student jobs: pot washers, cocktail waitress, library desk worker
  • Summer jobs after freshman year included office temp jobs, retail, camps, and internships
  • Choosing or changing majors
  • Finding housing for sophomore year could be difficult
  • Transition from single-sex to coed housing
  • Discovering new and unfamiliar foods. The hot trucks!
  • Fraternities, sororities as self-governing communities
  • Gender imbalance made dating difficult for underclass men
  • Study habits: At the library! With books!
  • Not instantly connected to the details of current events
  • Clothing: Jeans, sweatshirts, casual clothing that minimized socioeconomic differences
  • Different social groups
  • Limited dorm housing for men forced early independence
  • Outstanding array of concerts
  • College of Home Economics becomes College of Human Ecology
  • Sophomore year as a period of identity formation

Some significant events*

  • November 5, 1968: Richard M. Nixon defeats the Democratic candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and American Independent Party candidate George C. Wallace.
  • November 14, 1968: Yale University announces it is going to admit women.
  • April 18-19, 1969: Willard Straight Hall occupation
  • July 20, 1969: Apollo program Moon landing at 10:56 pm ET
  • August 15–18, 1969: the Woodstock Festival is held in upstate New York

* Events selected from Cornell Sun, Wikipedia, EventsHistory.com, and elsewhere.


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