This week’s Inside Look has us in Maine, visiting the beautiful campus of Bowdoin College. With us is Brendanmallery, Bowdoin ‘18, as he explains more about your typical weekend at school. Whether you go relax in the quad or get tickets to a game, Bowdoin has a lot going on. Read more to see what the school has to offer!
On a campus with an incredibly wide variety of people and interests, it’s difficult to describe a “typical” Bowdoin weekend, if such a thing even exists. For some, the weekend is time for kicking back and relaxing with friends, homework pushed to the back of your mind until Sunday evening. When the weather is nice, you’ll find the Main Quad packed with students reading, slack-lining, and tossing Frisbees. People will often take meals out of the dining halls for picnics on the grass, or have musical jam sessions propped against trees.
For members of the B.O.C. (Bowdoin Outing Club), the largest student organization on campus, the weekend is a time to go on trips around the incredibly scenic Maine countryside. For a small fee, any student can join the B.O.C. and participate in their weekly hiking, kayaking, rafting, and camping trips. It’s an amazing experience no student should miss out on—even if you think the outdoors aren’t your thing, you should at least give it a shot!
For any athletes on any of Bowdoin’s 30 varsity teams or 6 club sports, the weekend is game time. As a member of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), Bowdoin athletes have to spend many weekends competing, either on campus or at locations throughout the northeast. For athletes not in season, or students who just want to stay in shape, free time is spent working out in Buck Fitness Centre, or going for a refreshing run through the Bowdoin pines. For many students, the weekend is a good time to enjoy the town of Brunswick. Brunswick has dozens of wonderful pubs, restaurants, and cafes, and is also only 30 minutes away from Portland, the largest city in Maine.
But despite all these differences, Bowdoin students collectively share one weekend activity: work! Most students are enrolled in four different courses a semester, and on most weekends will have quizzes to study for, projects to work on, essays to write, and problem sets to solve. During midterms or finals week, everywhere from the libraries to empty classrooms are packed with students studying for exams. While these are definitely stressful times for everyone, the college does a good job at providing other activities during exam periods to help “de-stress” students, such as cuddly therapy dogs or s’more making sessions.
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