20 years. Thousands of memories. 161 traditions. Two decades after the original list debuted, the 142nd Editorial Board revamped our famous list, updating the quintessential experiences that define life on the Slope. So grab a carnelian colored pen (or steal one from the A.D. White House), and get to checking!
- Make the library into your bedroom and have sex in the stacks
- Go to the Cornell-Harvard men’s hockey game and throw fish on the ice
- Go to Zeus after class. Sit on a bench because all the tables are being used for coffee chats
- Take off to NYC for Fall Break, being sure to post on Instagram about it at least twice
- Sled down Libe Slope during a snowstorm
- Take Hotel Administration 4300: Introduction to Wines
- Take AMST 2001 and learn some Cornell history from Corey Earle ‘07
- Streak across the Arts Quad
- Go sake bombing at Plum Tree
- Order ice cream at the Dairy Bar
- Climb the rock wall in Bartels Hall
- Listen to a full chimes concert from the clock tower and guess the songs played
- Order the same thing off the Collegetown Bagels menu all four years
- Register for classes during Freshman Pre-Enroll, then switch out of every single one by the time Add/Drop ends
- Dress for 70 degree weather. Cry as you walk home in the freezing cold that night
- Steal a vegetable from the Cornell Botanic Gardens. Savor it
- Go to the Fuertes Observatory on North Campus and see Saturn through the telescope
- Enroll in BIOEE 1540: Introductory Oceanography as a joke, then fall in love with Bruce Monger and attend every class
- Have a snowball fight in May
- Stick your hand inside a fistulated cow
- Skip class to play SpikeBall on the Arts Quad
- Bury a bottle of Barton’s on the Slope. Dig it up on Slope Day.
- Enjoy golden hour from the Cornell Botanic Gardens
- Attend the Apple Festival on the Commons
- Flirt with your professor
- Bomb a prelim
- Ace the next one to save your grade
- Steal a bunch of cups from the dining hall and never give them back
- Attend Hotelie prom
- Take a selfie with Happy Dave from Okenshield’s
- Take three finals in two days because they were just over 24 hours apart
- Get heartburn at the Chili Cook-off on the Commons
- Enjoy Ithaca’s two months of warm weather — spend a summer here!
- Go to a Shabbat dinner at 104West!
- Watch the AAP students parade down East Avenue on Dragon Day
- Walk out of class to warm weather and immediately get a beer at CTB
- Build a snow penis or count how many you see around campus
- Dress up and view The Rocky Horror Picture Show at Risley
- Take a class you think is impossible just for fun
- Go to Catharine Valley for a wine tour
- Kiss on the suspension bridge at midnight
- Take Plant Pathology 2010: Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds
- Shop at the Friends of the Library Book Sale
- Get a University parking ticket, then sweet-talk your way out of it
- Buy an Ithaca Is Gorges t-shirt, then get sick of wearing it and buy a dumb variation (Ithaca Is Gangsta, Vaginas Are Gorges, Ithaca Is Long Island…)
- Learn the “Alma Mater,” “Evening Song” and “Give My Regards to Davy.” Hum them when you hear the chimes
- Attend an opening at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art
- Smuggle food from the dining hall and run for your life as they try to get back your stolen cookies
- Make the Walk of Shame. See an ex on your way home
- Have dinner at a professor’s house
- Get wasted at a professor’s house
- Take a selfie with a Cornell president
- Play a game of tag in the Kroch Library stacks
- Take a class that meets outside
- Start your freshman year pre-med. Graduate from Dyson.
- Kayak or canoe on Beebe Lake
- Watch dancers fly through the air at a Pao Bhangra show
- Have a midnight picnic in the Ag Quad
- Wait in line for half an hour for an orange chicken burrito at Terrace
- Ignore the “No Winter Maintenance” signs … slip and fall down the stairs
- Sit in Libe Café when you have no work to do and watch worried students down gallons of coffee
- Write an angry letter to the editor of The Sun
- Get swarmed by freshmen as they migrate back to north
- Explore the secret underground tunnel between Uris and Olin libraries
- Request an item from the library’s Rare and Manuscript Collection.
- Pretend you are Harry Potter and study in the A.D. White Reading Room
- See the brain collection in Uris Hall
- Use all your CityBucks at 7-11 on Keystone and Twisted Tea Light
- Submit a guest column for Sex on Thursday about your raunchy sexcapades
- Eat your way through the Farmer’s Market
- Sleep through your alarm for a 1:25 p.m. class
- Take part in a psychology experiment and get a measly number of SONA credits
- See Ezra Cornell’s body in the crypt
- Occupy Willard Straight or storm Day Hall
- Watch as a virgin crosses the Arts Quad at midnight and A.D. White and Ezra Cornell walk towards each other to shake hands on Halloween
- Live through an Ithaca blizzard and tell your friends you survived frostbite
- Throw a flaming pumpkin into the gorge
- Join an intramural sports team. Take it too seriously and get matching uniforms.
- Spend all your lectures figuring out the Wordle and Connections. While sitting for the final, wish you had taken notes instead
- Go ice skating at Lynah Rink
- Request a song to be played on the clock tower
- Watch the ginger run
- Walk to class in the snow, uphill both ways
- Hook up with someone in your dorm and then see them every day afterward
- Write dirty messages with rocks in the gorge
- Eat a chicken parm sandwich from Louie’s Lunch
- Walk the runway as a model in the Cornell Fashion Collective’s annual fashion show
- Sleep through pre-enroll and change your major as a result
- Gain the freshman 15. Pay $145 for a gym membership and don’t go.
- Play trivia at Collegetown Bagels on Tuesday nights
- Go bowling at Helen Newman Lanes
- Get a ticket for peeing on the Law School
- Have a friend’s parents take you out to eat at Thompson and Bleeker or Simeon’s
- See a concert at Barton Hall
- Order off the secret menu at Louie’s Lunch
- Cheer on your friends as they perform at the Schwartz Center
- Pick next year’s ice cream flavor
- Nap in every library on campus
- Get too drunk before homecoming. Miss the game
- Take a midnight nap in Uris Library Cocktail Lounge and wake up 3 days later
- See Yamatai bang it out at Clubfest
- Visit Ithaca Mall, realize it is severely lacking, then drive to Destiny USA Mall in Syracuse
- Take a night prelim near the vet school, walk back in the dark
- Get thrown out of Balch Hall
- Attend a show at the State Theatre or Hangar Theatre
- Go to an a cappella concert
- Walk to a fraternity party with your entire freshman floor. Get turned away
- Put on a swimsuit and jump into the cold water at Second Dam
- Take part in Holi and get colorful
- Eat at each dining hall at least once
- Try to order pizza from a Blue Light phone
- Have a traumatic OurBus experience. Never return
- See a film at Cornell Cinema
- Ride a horse at Oxley Equestrian Center
- Take the BASICS program. Do it with a beer in hand
- See how long you can go without doing laundry
- Get lost during O-week as a freshman, and end up in the Commons
- Have the Hideaway bartender take a picture of you because your fake doesn’t scan
- Check out a charger from Olin. Don’t give it back
- Lose a friend over signing a lease in Collegetown
- Walk holding hands around Beebe Lake
- Buy a Cornell-grown apple from a vending machine
- Get tapped for a secret society
- Go skinny dipping in a gorge
- Get more downvotes than upvotes on Sidechat
- Host a prefrosh
- Drive your car up and down Libe Slope
- Make a chalking. Weep when it rains that night
- Attend a Sun meeting
- Take photobooth pics at Hideaway and post them on your Instagram story
- Eat hungover brunch at Morrison or Appel
- Turn down a flyer at Ho Plaza and say “I already got one”
- Rush a fraternity/sorority or mosey a co-op during your freshman spring
- Meet Bill Nye ’77, “The Science Guy,” and give him a hug
- Ski at Greek Peak
- Crash a political rally on Ho Plaza
- Get on the wrong TCAT and end up at Ithaca College
- Watch women’s hockey dominate any team who steps on the ice
- See how many people you can cram into your dorm room
- Order Wings Over after 2 a.m.
- Make the trek down the hill: go to a townie bar
- Tell a professor what you really think of his/her class
- Drink with your R.A.
- Go to the sex shop, called the “Adult Outlet,” on the Commons. Gawk
- Run out of BRBs in March. Live off campus events’ free food for the rest of the year
- Heckle your tour guide friend as they’re leading a group of prospective students around campus
- Get asked if you are pregnant at Cornell Health
- Experience a UAW strike
- Go to ClubFest as a first-year and sign up for a dozen clubs that you’ll never go to
- Complain about the Slope Day headliners
- Hit up Fishbowl Wednesdays at Level B
- Ask for an extension on a term paper
- Accidentally rip a poster at the poster sale. Tell no one
- Play mini golf at the Sciencenter
- Hook up with your hot T.A.
- Go swimming at Treman State Park, Buttermilk Falls or Second Dam
- Furnish an apartment entirely with items from Ithaca Reuse and the Dump & Run
- Walk to a fraternity party as a senior; convince yourself you were never one of them
- Fail your swim test, just for kicks
- Eat a Pinesburger, then watch water flow over Taughannock Falls, the highest single-drop waterfall east of the Rockies.
- Climb all 161 steps to the top of McGraw Tower
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