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. Transferred out of engineering.
  • Finding housing for sophomore year could be difficult
  • Transition from single-sex to coed housing
  • Discovering new and unfamiliar foods. The hot trucks!
  • All curfews abolished mid-year.
  • 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.


Share your memories of Cornell

3 responses to “Sophomore Year”

  1.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    Many of us gather in the Ivy Room at the Straight to watch the lottery. Some left relieved, others less so.

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  2. profonthepath Avatar
    profonthepath

    On Saturday, April 19, 1969, during the weekend of the Straight occupation by Black students, my parents were in town (I think it was Parents Weekend), I was playing for the Big Red lacrosse team in the snow and losing to Harvard on Lower Alumni Field (no longer there). All of that together made that particular weekend quite memorable.

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  3.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    Saturday football game “fashion”: kilt (with a huge safety pin), knee socks, pea coat … and a blanket.

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