Students at Notre Dame are a breed of their own. With age-old traditions and legacies, there are just some things at ND that you can't find anywhere else. While your friends at other schools may not quite understand these signs, you, the 8,000 other undergraduates on campus, as well as the thousands of alumni all will.
1. You can be seen wearing your Notre Dame apparel at least four days a week.
You spent $30 on that t-shirt, you best believe that you're going to wear it every week.
2. You abbreviate everything.
Freshman year was already confusing, but it didn't help when the upperclassmen never called the buildings by their real names. La Fun, Dbart, O'Shag, CoMo, and so many more, but no worries, you got the ND slang down in a matter of days
3. The dorm you live in is an extension of your identity.
Your dorm is your home away from home and your family. Where you live is a huge part of the culture at Notre Dame and will probably be in the first few things you tell anyone when you first meet them. It's kind of like a sorority, but not at all. Peace, Love, Pdub!
4. You have a strong allegiance to your dining hall.
That face you make when someone insists that South is better than North.
5. Going to Target is an adventure.
Sometimes the Notre Dame bubble is all too real, so paying $15 for an Uber to Target is as exciting as Christmas morning.
6. You know at least five girls named Katherine or Mary and eight guys named John or Luke.
Keeping track of all the Maggies in your dorm, or all the Lukes in your Bio lab is like mission impossible, but it all comes with the territory of being at a Catholic university.
7. You're regularly late to class because you had to stop and take a picture of the Dome.
If you don't think the Dome in the fall is the prettiest thing you've ever seen, you're wrong.
8. You low-key judge someone based on their dorm before you know them.
That moment when that really cute guy from Theology tells you he's from Zahm.
9. You almost get hit by a biker or skateboarder every day leaving Dbart.
You're supposed to share the road and yield to pedestrians, yet you somehow always find yourself fearing for your life as you dodge out of the way of a biker.
10. If you don't lock your bike, it will get put in a tree.
It's all fun and games until it happens to you.
11. Touchdown push-ups are your weekly workout.
The whole push up thing seemed a lot easier when 10 of your friends were doing all the work for you last Saturday.
12. You consider yourself to be in a long-distance relationship if you're talking to a guy from Carroll Hall.
Sometimes it feels like an actual ocean, not just St. Mary's Lake, standing between you and your man.
13. You accidentally walk through a campus tour at least once a week.
You love the fact that so many students want to visit your school, but they always seem to be standing in between you and making it to class on time. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
14. On game-days, you're out tailgating by 9 a.m.
What more can I say? Tailgate like a champion today.
15. You get chills swaying to the Alma Mater regardless of how many times you've heard it.
"Notre Dame our Mother..."
16. You get confused when your friends at other schools have guys living in their dorms.
Single-sex dorm life is the best life, and parietals are just a thing that come with it. So, when your friend at a public university sends you a Snapchat at 3 a.m. in a dorm room with guys, you can't help but feel a little confused.
17. You've seen Rudy more times than you're proud to admit.
And this scene gets you every time. Every stinkin' time.
18. You come from a long legacy of Notre Dame alumni (or at least fans).
Odds are you were able to keep up with your grandpa singing the Notre Dame Fight Song by the time you were eight years old.
19. You will never not say Notre Dame is the best school ever.
Love thee.
