Harvey Mudd College
Harvey Mudd College is a highly selective, private college of science, engineering and mathematics, located in Claremont, California. It is one of the institutions of the Claremont Colleges. The school is informally known as Harvey Mudd as well as Mudd. Students at Mudd are known as Mudders. The college is one of the most selective in the nation; the median entering SAT score is about 770 (out of 800) in mathematics, and 1470 (out of 1600) overall. A third of the student body are National Merit Scholars, and about 40 percent of graduates go onto graduate programs—the highest of any college or university in the nation.
Harvey Mudd College has a unique mission which, to paraphrase, is: to educate scientists, engineers, and mathematicians well-versed in the social sciences and humanities so that they have an understanding of the impact of their work on society. The college offers four-year degrees in chemistry, mathematics, physics, computer science, biology, and engineering, as well as interdisciplinary degrees in mathematical biology, and a joint major in either computer science and mathematics or biology and chemistry. Students may also elect to complete an Independent Program of Study (IPS) made up of courses of their own choosing. Usually between two and five students graduate with an IPS degree each year. Finally, students may choose an off-campus major offered by any of the other Claremont Colleges, provided they also complete a minor in one of the technical fields in which Mudd offers majors.
Because of its mission statement, Harvey Mudd places an unusually strong emphasis on general science education outside one's major, with a full one-third of courses in this area, known as the "common core." Students are required to take another one-third of their courses in the humanities, keeping with the school's tradition of science with a conscience. The other one-third is composed of courses in the student's major. The integration of research and education is an important component of the educational experience at Harvey Mudd; by the time they graduate, every student has had some kind of research experience, in the form of a senior thesis or a Clinic Program experience. The undergraduate focus of HMC means that, unlike many other science and engineering insitutions, undergraduates at HMC get unique access to research positions over the summer and during the school year.
A unique aspect of an HMC education is the Clinic Program, in which teams of students work for a year on a project supplied by a company, make regular reports to the company and, at the end of the year, deliver a product. There are Clinic projects in engineering, computer science, mathematics, physics and other majors. This kind of real-world experience gives students a first-hand look at a particular industry, and gives the company a team of four bright and hard-working students, many of whom they often recruit for jobs after graduation.
The college is named after Harvey Seeley Mudd, who was one of the initial investors in the Cyprus Mines Corporation. Although involved in the planning of the new institution, Mudd died before it opened. Harvey Mudd College was funded by Mudd's friends and family, and named in his honor.
Harvey Mudd College is contiguous to the other Claremont Colleges, and students at these colleges may take classes at any of them, though classes in the student's major are normally taken at their own college.
Athletics teams from Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College and Scripps College compete as one team. Male athletic teams are called the Stags, and women's teams are called the Athenas. The teams participate in the NCAA's Division III and in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
Harvey Mudd College Dormitories
The official names for the dorms are Mildred E. Mudd ("East"), West, North, Marks ("South"), Atwood, Case, Linde, and Sontag. Atwood and Case were occasionally referred to as New Dorm and New Dorm II up until the addition of Linde and Sontag; Mildred E. Mudd Hall and Marks Hall are almost invariably referred to as East and South.
When Case was being built some students decided as a prank to move all of the survey stakes exactly six inches to the north. They did such a precise job that the construction crew didn't notice until after they had laid the foundation, but California earthquake law forced them to reinspect the new location at some significant expense. Furthermore, the plumbing has never worked quite right. Case is also very occasionally known as Seventh dorm (despite being the sixth dorm built) or as the Pink Dorm due to the fact that the cinder blocks used in its construction are rather shrimp-colored.
It is notable that South Dorm is in the northwest corner of the quad. "East" was the first dorm, but it wasn't until West was built to the west of it that it was actually referred to as East. Then North was built, north of East. When the fourth dorm (Marks) was built, there was one corner of the quad available (the northwest) and one directional name (South) left. It got both, and to this day South is more 'north' on the compass than North dorm is.
The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth dorms are Atwood, Case, Linde, and Sontag, respectively. They were collectively referred to as "the Colonies" by some students, a reference to the fact that they are newer and are at the far end of the campus, a full two blocks away from the academic buildings; these dorms are now more commonly referred to as "the Outer Dorms." The college purchased an apartment building adjacent to the newer dorms to house additional students, but it was demolished to make room for the newest dorm, Sontag.
Architecture
One of the fun things about Mudd is that most of the computer labs, as well as the major social gathering point (the Muddhole), are located in the basements (called the Libra Complex) of the concrete-block buildings; i.e. some classes take place underground. Most of these buildings are also covered with thousands of concrete "handholds," called "warts" by the students, perfectly suited for buildering, except that while some are set into the wall others are simply glued on. In addition, these warts have the unusual usefullness of being great 'shelves' for unicycles and skateboards. One can walk towards Galileo Hall and see the warts (especially those on the inside of the buildings) being used to stack unicycles and skateboards. Interestingly enough, the unofficial mascot of Harvey Mudd (featured on many college handbooks and other publications) is one of these concrete blocks with a smile, arms, and legs, named "Wally the Wart."
Unicycles on Campus
In the early 1970s the first unicycles came on campus. In 1972 there were 4 of them. The notion caught on, and there are now dozens of unicycles on campus, and for many students it is a "rite of passage" to learn to ride. The unicycling club is known as Gonzo Unicycle Madness, and organizes an annual eight mile ride to a donut shop for strawberry donuts. At irregular intervals club members also meet to play unicycle hockey.
The other favorite mode of transportation for Mudders is skateboarding. Because the paths of Mudd are smooth and the route to the academic building on one side of campus from the dorms is so straightforward, skateboarding to class is very popular -- and Mudders as a whole skate more than any of the nearby Claremont Colleges.
Rivalry with Caltech
There is a long-standing rivalry between Harvey Mudd and the nearby Caltech; except this rivalry is basically unacknowledged by Caltech. For example, in one prank, students from Mudd "stole" a memorial cannon from Caltech (originally from the National Guard) by dressing as maintenance people and carting it off on a flatbed truck for "cleaning"; Caltech students got it back by having their school President threaten legal action. In another prank, Mudd students made a slight modification to a freeway sign indicating "California Institute of Technology / Pasadena City College / Next Exit". Their prank was quite subtle: they put parentheses around "Pasadena City College".
More Pranks
Pranks at Harvey Mudd are known for being clever, amusing, technically precise, and reversible (by policy, pranksters must leave contact information, and reverse the prank within 24 hours if told to do so). One student returned from a long weekend away to discover his room filled from floor to ceiling with inflated plastic garbage bags. The pranksters had used high-powered fans to inflate them. Once the Dean of Students discovered that some Mudders had moved everything in his office exactly 20 meters south of its original location - placing it on the grass in the middle of campus. Everything in his office was perfectly organized and functional - even his telephone and Internet connection worked. It was a pleasant day, so he spent the day outside.
Famous Alumni
- Don Chamberlin, 1966, co-inventor of SQL (database query language) and IBM representative to the working group developing the XML query language.
- George "Pinky" Nelson, 1972, astronaut.
- Richard Jones, 1972, former US Ambassador to Lebanon, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, and Chief Policy Officer and Deputy Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
- Bruce Nelson, 1974, inventor of the remote procedure call.
More Trivia
- Harvey Mudd College leads the nation in percentage of graduates who go on to earn the Ph.D - well over 40% in recent years. Over 65% go on to earn at least a Master's degree.