ISU Tidbits?

[Kraps]

When you go on a tour your tour guides always tell you little tips/tricks and tidbits unique to the school. I'm going to ISU this fall but never toured so I never learned any of these... :/ Anybody care to share?

 

[CycloneErik]

I see orientation groups every day. Is it too late to schedule one? Seems like there should be openings.

 

[Kraps]

I see orientation groups every day. Is it too late to schedule one? Seems like there should be openings.

Already went to orientation and its nothing like a tour group, or at least my specific experience wasn't.

 

[QCCyclone]

You can still take a tour during your orientation (assuming you're going). Having said that:

• Don't step on the zodiac in the MU front entrance or you'll fail your next test. This can be reversed by throwing a coin into the fountain in front of the building
• CyRide can take you everywhere you need to go on campus or in Ames, all free for students
• Bikes aren't essential but helpful
• The dome on Beardshear is green because that's where all the money goes (lame joke).
• The fence around the Palmer playground is there to keep the students out, not the kids in (another lame joke)
• There are 2 great gyms on campus that are 100% free to students
• 1st ever computer was made at Iowa State and there's a replica in Durham (if it's still there). Original is at the Smithsonian
• You can buy Subway and Panda Express from the MU with your dining dollars, which come combined with your meal plan
• Speaking of meal plans, I think you have 1-2 weeks to switch plans if you'd like. I found that more than 10 meals/week was too much, but it's all your personal preference

I know I'm missing about 1,000 more

 

[RubyClone]

You can still take a tour during your orientation (assuming you're going). Having said that:

• Don't step on the zodiac in the MU front entrance or you'll fail your next test. This can be reversed by throwing a coin into the fountain in front of the building
• CyRide can take you everywhere you need to go on campus or in Ames, all free for students
• Bikes aren't essential but helpful
• The dome on Beardshear is green because that's where all the money goes (lame joke).
• The fence around the Palmer playground is there to keep the students out, not the kids in (another lame joke)
• There are 2 great gyms on campus that are 100% free to students
• 1st ever computer was made at Iowa State and there's a replica in Durham (if it's still there). Original is at the Smithsonian
• You can buy Subway and Panda Express from the MU with your dining dollars, which come combined with your meal plan
• Speaking of meal plans, I think you have 1-2 weeks to switch plans if you'd like. I found that more than 10 meals/week was too much, but it's all your personal preference

I know I'm missing about 1,000 more

I never heard of the reverse to the zodiac. Wife and I were on campus last summer - I still walk around that damn thing some 20 yrs later. She thought it was hysterical (she went to iowa. Lost cause)

Not so much tidbit as urban legend, but about every location in Ames at one point or another was a heavy water dump site from the Manhattan project in the 40's. Keep an eye out for the black helicopters taking air readings.

- Just wait until the next big construction project, particularly if it involves a playground or something to do with kids. Somebody will make the claim that it's hot.

Basement of Gilman hall is sealed off because it was too radioactive.

Take all your first dates the campanile at midnight.....

 

[Cycsk]

There is a direct descendant of Confucius buried in the Iowa State Cemetery.

 

[Rabbuk]

Jesus multiplied the fishes and loaves on the ground hilton coliseum stands on.

 

[inCyteful]

Shoot. You need to throw a coin in fountain to reverse stepping on the zodiac? No wonder my gpa sucked. I thought you were supposed to pee in it. Good thing no one ever swims there!

 

[00clone]

I walked across the zodiac every time I went thru there.

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds
-Edmund Burke

 

[QCCyclone]

I never heard of the reverse to the zodiac. Wife and I were on campus last summer - I still walk around that damn thing some 20 yrs later. She thought it was hysterical (she went to iowa. Lost cause)

Not so much tidbit as urban legend, but about every location in Ames at one point or another was a heavy water dump site from the Manhattan project in the 40's. Keep an eye out for the black helicopters taking air readings.

- Just wait until the next big construction project, particularly if it involves a playground or something to do with kids. Somebody will make the claim that it's hot.

Basement of Gilman hall is sealed off because it was too radioactive.

Take all your first dates the campanile at midnight.....

Can't believe I forgot this important tidbit! They say you're not a true Iowa Stater until you've snuck a kiss under the campanile at the stroke of midnight. They also do mass campaniling during Homecoming and VEISHEA (or whatever it will be called next year) where the band plays and hundreds of students gather around the campanile awaiting their kiss. Kind of weird but it's something you should do.

 

[JWIL4CY]

Shoot. You need to throw a coin in fountain to reverse stepping on the zodiac? No wonder my gpa sucked. I thought you were supposed to pee in it. Good thing no one ever swims there!

Hopefully that wasn't in the spring of 2004 or else I might have swam in pee.

 

[00clone]

Hopefully that wasn't in the spring of 2004 or else I might have swam in pee.

If you've been to a public pool, you've swam in pee.

wink:

 

[CyArob]

Get a bus map and learn which routes go where.

 

[WhatchaGonnaDo]

Eat at Battle's BBQ at least once per week

 

[azepp]

The curse of the Zodiac can't be reversed. I've never heard the throwing a coin in the fountain thing to reverse the curse but it sounds like a rather juvenile myth to me.

 

[WhatchaGonnaDo]

The curse of the Zodiac can't be reversed. I've never heard the throwing a coin in the fountain thing to reverse the curse but it sounds like a rather juvenile myth to me.

And believing the curse of the zodiac isn't juvenile?

 

[cmjh10]

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT pull the bus chord at Kildee/Bessey and State/Beyer stops. Those are transfer points so they stop every time.

Do not wear the string bag and stuff they give you are DIS.

Dont be all happy on your first day of class and try to make friends with an upperclassman, we have been here long enough that we arent happy anymore.

 

[cmjh10]

The zodiac "curse" is just a way to help preserve the zodiac. The only way you will fail your next test is if you dont prepare for it.

 

[CyFan61]

Get a bus map and learn which routes go where.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT pull the bus chord at Kildee/Bessey and State/Beyer stops. Those are transfer points so they stop every time.

Do not wear the string bag and stuff they give you are DIS.

Quoting some of the advice that I would second.

Also: I hope you are starting off in the dorms. It is a great way to make friends right away. Some of the people you meet on the day you move in will be your closest friends after you graduate. Do a year in the dorms (two max) and then get into an apartment.

 

[00clone]

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT pull the bus chord at Kildee/Bessey and State/Beyer stops. Those are transfer points so they stop every time.

Do not wear the string bag and stuff they give you are DIS.

Dont be all happy on your first day of class and try to make friends with an upperclassman, we have been here long enough that we arent happy anymore.

Protip: Stop taking classes with freshmen and you won't be there so long.

wink: