Venerable Formal Dinner
culture  

Venerable Formal Dinner

By Sakthi Vetrivel

Last weekend was formal dinner for the north houses, so I decided to make use of my social membership and dine with Venerable for a night. While house dinners are mainly populated by members of that particular house, there are usually a lot of other non-members at formal dinners.

Venerable also has a tradition of inviting professors to their formal dinner, which makes it a really cool way to see your profs outside of the lecture hall, which doesn’t happen often. Caltech is such a small school, so it’s pretty neat to interact with your profs and forget about the class dynamic. These interactions also strengthen the relationship between the undergraduate and the faculty, as they get a taste of the undergrad social scene. This in turn contributes to more understanding faculty when it comes to the academic stresses of Caltech.

Sadly, this was also the last formal dinner for the seniors. The girls in the picture above have really been my family away from home. From lending an ear about my boy problems, to helping me plan out my course schedule for the next three years, to reminding me that Caltech is hard for everyone, no matter how effortless we make it look, these women have been so supportive through my freshman year. How many other schools can claim such strong relationships between freshmen and seniors? By virtue of the house system, all the years are mixed together in the same hallways and sometimes even the same room. This gives undergraduates access to so many different experiences and adds another dimension to the support system at Caltech.

While I’m excited for the upcoming summer, and to dip my feet in the world of entrepreneurship, it’s a little terrifying to think that I’m about a quarter through my college experience already, and to realize that these people won’t be just a few steps away from my room anymore.

Cheers, Sakthi

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