I am having a truly unique sophomore year. In the fall, I was a CA in McBride. For the Spring, I’ve moved to be a CA in Mather. I was placed in Lewis freshman year, and I thought I had escaped living in one of the weird brick beasts, the dungeon halls that make you feel like you’re living in a video game and carrying a torch down a secret passageway to slay a lizard. Turns out, I won the lottery! I get to live in BOTH of them! As a SOPHOMORE! In ONE YEAR! Hurrah! Since moving into Mather, I’ve started to pick up on the slight differences between the two buildings and their communities. And that got me thinking– what makes Mather, Mather? What makes McBride, McBride? And thus began my study.
I started my research by considering the physical differences. Well, Mather has a fourth floor– that seems obvious. Also upperclassmen and a mechanical room. McBride’s hallway lighting is slightly brighter, Mather’s carpeting seems slightly cleaner, or maybe just newer. Green couches, red couches. Mather’s lounge is oddly sweltering in temperature. The list of little distinctions goes on forever, but none of them felt as though they were painting me the full picture. I wanted to really FEEL the aura of each of the dark twins.
I decided to survey the populations. What came next was a Google Form sent out to both the McBride and Mather email lists with a variety of questions, ranging from “where do you like to sit in Peirce?” to “do you like cilantro?” I harvested some cold, hard data. Here are my results:
- Residents of McBride like where they live about 11% more than residents of Mather. But, overall, both had positive feelings (Stockholm Syndrome perhaps? Just wondering).
- As for bagel toppings, cream cheese seems to be a universal favorite. What’s truly perplexing is why peanut butter is exclusively favored in McBride while jelly is exclusively favored in Mather. Could this mean McBride and Mather are truly a perfect pair?
- Both buildings have about 50% non-believers when it comes to astrology. But, Mather has a significant portion of people who “sort of” believe in it. Does this mean people in Mather tend to be more non-committal? Or maybe just more optimistic? It’s hard to say. But if I learned anything during Intro Stats, it’s that correlation EQUALS CAUSATION. So I guess living in Mather makes you more wishy-washy!
- You heard it here first. Mather sits on Old Side more than McBride and McBride sits on New Side more than Old Side. THIS IS NOT WHAT I EXPECTED. Is this ground breaking? Am I so socially conditioned by this campus that I am actually shocked by this information?
- Lastly, I asked the first years of M&M the following: “?” and gave them a variety of affirmative responses to choose from. It’s this set of data that disturbs me the most. Of all of the questions on the form, this one showed the most extreme difference in results. McBride’s majority is easily “we love to see it,” while Mather’s is undeniably “yeehaw.” This finding really speaks to me. In the most chilling of ways. We’ve cracked the McMather code. I’ve never felt so alive.
So that’s it. All of the subtleties of McBride and Mather can be summarized by the following:
“McBride: we love to see it. Mather: yeehaw.”