Fourth-year students bid farewell to TIP

By Amanda Boehlke
M&M staffer

They are the most pivotal moments: receiving that first orange shoestring, getting a briefing on your new privileges, bawling your eyes out at the last dance, staying up all night with the best friends you’ll ever know.And they’re all a part of being a fourth year.
At Duke TIP, ‘fourth years’ are students who have completed the tenth grade, the majority of whom are sixteen. Regardless of whether or not they have attended the program for four years, these students receive special privileges and sometimes a degree of respect from younger TIPsters. Since it is also the last year during which it is possible to attend TIP, fourth years often have the most emotional goodbyes at the end of summer. They are the TIPster elite.Or at the very least, that’s what one would think.
Fourth years don’t see their status at the top as a good thing at all. When asked about what it felt like to be a fourth year, all five students in a group interview simultaneously chorused that “it sucks!” Fourth year Danielle Bedard added that “I would trade all my privileges… all the privileges I could have as a fourth year… just to be here for longer.”
Many fourth year TIPsters also state that they don’t really feel the way they thought being a fourth year would be like.
“I don’t even feel like a fourth year,” said Emily Kruse. She added that, other than wearing an orange shoestring, she didn’t feel special at all, a statement agreed to by Sam Scrogtis. Being a fourth year, he said, didn’t feel like it gave him any sort of status or special role to play.
“I wanted people to admire and look up to me as a fourth year,” said Bedard, but that’s not happening quite as expected. “That was really upsetting to me,” she added. “With the move it kinda put everyone in the perspective of a first year, so it like… it was like awkward fourth years.”
Many other fourth years also sympathize with the feeling of losing the normal ‘status’ that fourth years have historically received from younger TIPsters.
Although being a fourth year has the most downsides, especially at a brand new campus, there are also good parts too.
“[I’m] kind of excited that we’re the first graduating class [from UGA],” said Kruse. Being a fourth year at this new campus means that you can have more chances than ever to truly shape the campus into something new.
Most fourth years agree that they wanted to bring new traditions to UGA campus, as well as continue old ones. Since the overwhelming majority of fourth years came from ASU, many traditions come from that campus. However, not all fourth years are from the same campus. There are a few who come from Kansas and Texas A&M, among others, and although many don’t mind, some object to the inheritance of traditions.
“It’s awesome that we’re here and it’s awesome that I’m like... getting to interact with new people but it kind of sucks how people are discouraging traditions, almost,” said Bedard. “People were, like, really frowned upon [on] bringing in ASU traditions, so they sort of frowned upon all traditions,” she added.New UGA traditions have continued to blossom, though, despite the fact that there are some who discourage the creations of traditions (staff and the majority of students, however, love them).
Two newer traditions that fourth years have played a major role in creating were Blue Tuesday, the first Tuesday of the term, when all students were encouraged to wear some article of blue clothing, and Disney Princess Day, intended for the fourth year girls to dress as a Disney princess for the day. New traditions were intended to include all of those, including those who were not part of the continuing traditions from other campuses.
“We want to include everybody,” said fourth year Casey Brand. Continuing traditions from all campuses include the fourth year boys’ obsession with ninjas and the fact that fourth years run the student team for Staff vs. Student Ultimate Frisbee game.
Fourth years also played a major part in organizing Toga Day, and sacrificing Decades Day for Opposite Day instead of changing the Texas A&M tradition.But all the fourth years, despite the turbulence caused at this new campus, still feel the pain of leaving TIP for the final time.
Even so, fourth years often are numbed to the sting that those steps at the door can leave.“I think the move to UGA was a part of it. At ASU I would chain myself, like someone did, to Cone,” said Kruse, an ASU ‘alumna.’“I’ve been bracing myself for leaving since my first year… so I’m kind of numb to it now,” said Bedard.
She shares that sentiment with many other fourth years, but their actions speak louder than words: fourth years share more smiles, laughs, and tears than could be counted. The last dance ended in a mass of tears and hugs as fourth years said goodbye.
“I feel sort of like it’s time, but just thinking about it I get really upset,” said Brand. Tonight and tomorrow, the fourth years will find out what it really feels like to be leaving for the very last time. They all know that it’s time to leave, though, and they’ve all come to terms. The tears will fall down their faces, but onto their smiles, not their frowns.

Amanda Boehlke, 16, is a 4th-year TIPster from Roswell, Ga. She attends Marist School.