The Turkey Mascot and the Hokie Stone

Introduction
Every single building here is called Hokie Stone, which VA. Tech basically has the rights to this certain quarry. I think the stone actually takes 300 million years to age and they won’t let anyone else use it and it’s on almost every building here. In the beginning of the football game when the team runs out, they all jump up and hit the Hokie stone on the way out of the tunnel because that’s where we’re from and this Hokey Stone represents who we are. The Mascot is a turkey and it started off really weird. It started off our football team used to go to other schools and gobble up all the food, so we became the fighting gobblers, which slowly evolved into the turkey.

Campus Life and Social Life
When I first came to campus I realized that everyone was really friendly. You’d walk around campus and everyone had smiles on their faces, so I felt like it was a really great atmosphere and everyone was really excited to just get here. Football season is really amazing and that’s what everyone gets pumped up for here. And that’s a big part of life in the Fall. Everyone wakes up at like 8, no matter how much partying you did the night before and tailgating begins then. Everyone’s jumping up and down, screaming. And we have this thing called orange effect, where everyone wears orange. And we try to get the whole stadium orange. The food here is probably the best that you’ll find at any campus. We’re ranked pretty high up there for the best food in America. Advertisement
Academics
I am a finance and accounting in the Pamplin school of business. And I’m a freshman so basically I’m just taking my core requirement classes and the basic classes, I’m required to take for the business program. This is a big engineering school and architecture and agriculture school, so there’s a lot of people studying that. There’s a very wide range of majors you can choose from here. There’s fashion majors here, there’s communications, there’s theater, so I think there’s pretty much everything that you’d want to study here. The beginning class can be anywhere from 100 to sometimes even 500 students. Those 500 student classes aren’t that overwhelming because you’ll have 3 days for the lecture class and then you’ll have another day for the resuscitation or your lab class. So everyone break up into smaller groups with a teacher that gives you more personal attention and can answer questions a lot easier because it’s more of a intimate setting. The workload I’d say is pretty much medium as an entering student depending on what your major is. I’m a business student so it’s not as intense right now, but it will be intense. Engineering they have a lot of homework to do, lot of tests to study for and even projects to work on. The funding for each of the depts. is well distributed. It just so happens that this is an engineering school and that’s why their program and so well funded because they’re program is a great program.

Student Body
Greek life that’s a great way to start and make friends. Pledging a sorority or a fraternity, you’re going to meet a pledge class and you guys will grow up together through college and that’s a good experience too.
As far as the social scene goes, you don’t have to be in a frat to have fun or a sorority. As far as nightlife goes, it’s great nightlife here in Blacksburg, VA. If you’re older, you probably go downtown and visit the bars or go to a restaurant. If you’re just an underclassmen, you’ll probably go into apartment parties or a frat party and there’s always something to do. Some people stay in the dorms and just have fun and socialize in there. But there’s always a place to go, there’s always something to do.

In Closing...
I think there’s a lot of pretty girls here… I had a girlfriend in the Fall semester but now in the Spring now that I can look there’s a lot of pretty girls walking around here. There is more guys here and that’s going to be because we have an agriculture, engineering, architecture school. But if you’re looking for a girl, there’s always a girl to find if they want to be found. One thing I was overwhelmed by was the amount of people who want to get to know you and are really happy and excited to be here. Everyone love VA. Tech that goes here that I know. I haven’t met any of my friends that say I hate it here. Here everyone’s really friendly and just loves to be a part of this atmosphere. I would say VA. Tech is pretty moderate because we are in the south so, but there’s also a good mix of people coming from Northern, VA. and Maryland. So there’s a very good mix of liberals and Republicans. We have 2 clubs for both and they both get pretty intense.