Do ND students often feel like SMC girls "invade their space"?

DuckIsland15
Fri, 08 Apr 2016 05:59:40 +0000

I never heard anyone complain about SMC students being able to attend ND classes or join ND clubs. I had casual friends in clubs that I didn’t find out were SMC students for years because it never came up. SMC students can also attend ND football games in the student section and virtually everyone from both schools does so.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some unhealthy attitudes about the schools’ relationship. There is a small minority of ND girls who seem to feel threatened or annoyed by SMC girls “stealing” ND guys or something. Again, small, but I ran into a number of them, so it is somewhat a thing. Maybe more widespread is the (not super serious, “joking,” but still potentially hurtful) impression that SMC girls are promiscuous and/or just looking for a husband from ND. SMC students call the shuttle that brings them to ND’s campus “blinkie,” while a great deal of ND students call it “the sluttle.” I also heard the joke about the “MRS Degree” a lot about both SMC students and (less often) ND girls. Towards the beginning of freshman year especially, there were several disparaging jokes going around, which mostly fizzled away as people started making actual friends. So there’s definitely that latent sexism to deal with. I’m not trying to turn you off, and I think the relationship overall is a good one and most people have friends on both campuses, with there being a strong blending of the student bodies socially, but it’s something you should prepare yourself to shake off from time to time.