“Throw your hands up and shout!”

With a much lower occupancy on campus during the summer, weekends begin to repeat themselves; wake up, throw on your bathing suit, hang out by the water, sail, kayak, eat, watch movies, and then consume the rest of the night with friends. I was excited for this particular weekend though because it was alumni weekend. Students from as far back as the class of 1945 would all return to campus for celebration. I thought it would be fun to talk to the past graduates, learn about how much campus life has changed since they left St. Mary’s, but even more the things that were exactly the same.  I was taught about how the dining hall was once in the basement of Calvert Hall, how Kent Hall used to house the basketball court and more. It was a great time conversing and hanging out with alumni. However, I did not expect to spend saturday night dancing and singing “Throw your hands up and shout!” with an extremely energetic alumni crowd. It was also priceless to hear a 1972 grad sing along to Just Dance by Lady Gaga. Basically, while the buildings changed and the college expanded as a present student I realized that the amount of fun, energy and passion that comes out of a St. Mary’s student has definitely not changed in the past 65 years.