Woodsie Rights of Passage
Just so you know women who attend Saint Mary's refer to themselves as Woodsies.
Also, as a T-Shirt says, "It’s not a girl’s college without men, it's a women's college without boys."
In many ways I am proud of my education at the Woods. In many ways am I also ashamed and annoyed. The school has a lot of cool traditions, but these are the traditions that have been allowed to survive by the administration.
As freshmen you receive an acorn, and as a senior a laurel of oak leaves.
Big Sis/Lil Sis week is an annoying pain though. They took a concept that could have been cool and made it annoying. Juniors select a little sis and give them presents in secret all week, revelations occurs at the end of this week and they make such an incredibly stupid big deal about it. I guess this is what happens when a bunch of chicks with high school mentalities get together.
My most common comment about the Woods is that in reality women only go there for three career tracks.
Wife
Nun/Cat Lady
Real Life
The school originally had a relationship and still does to a great extent with the formally all boys school Rose Hulman Institute of Technology.
Today it is still the die hard desire of most Woodsies to be engaged, preferably to a Rose boy, before their junior year ends. And later be married a year after graduation, preferably on St. Mary's campus, and in June, because yeah, something about June brides.
Saint Mary's is located in Saint Mary of the Woods, Indiana. Which is really a slice of Terre Haute, but we don't like to be associated with TH. The school offers an incredibly limited set of degrees that you can earn. Some of the degrees offered are ungodly hard, and most are so easy that as long as you show up once a semester they will generally award you with a degree. It also helps to be a daughter of a staff member.
Saint Mary's prides itself on being the oldest Catholic Womens' college. Which is a glorified way of saying "Girls Finishing School." I actually was witness to a "Coming Out Party," something that I felt was not only a habit of the state south of the Mason-Dixon line, but a thing of the past, you know before women's rights. In case you were wondering a "Coming Out Party" is held when a young girl of a respectable family reaches an age when they need to be properly socialized in order to find a husband. Typical age is 14. So the parents invite colleagues and friends to come and bring their sons so that everyone has a change to check out each others goods/children.