I am an admitted student of the class of '21 (however I don't know if I will be attending BMC yet), and I have been doing some research on BMC traditions etc. I heard that they might be getting rid of/changing Hell Week? What exactly is Hell Week, and how did they change it? Will BMC get rid of it in the future?
first of all, congratulations!
hell week is the third tradition of the year and a lot of people’s favorite (i’m not biased at all). it takes place during mid-february and it lasts for three days, wed-fri of that week. what happens is that sometime prior to this event a first year picks an upperclassperson(s) to be their “heller”/”rose”. most of the people choose more than one heller, and more than one person might choose the same heller. the result is hell families, which can get really complicated. some families can be traced back years and years, while some families just end up being a parent and a child. usually families are built within clubs/sports, since the first years end up getting close to specific upperclasspeople in that way. but there are also heller/hellee mixers around hell week for anyone who wants a heller/hellee but hasn’t found one yet!
that person then personalizes a schedule of tasks for the hellee/bud to do that week, usually ridiculous and hilarious. in addition, there are campus-wide events like the goodhart and thomas performances, where groups perform skits on stage. (much more exciting than it sounds, i promise)
hell week is NOT hazing. just like every tradition, each first year is as involved with hell week as they want to be. a lot of people choose multiple hellers, some choose none at all but still participate in the campus-wide activities, and some don’t do any of that. none of the tasks that your heller gives you are obligatory, and the whole point of the experience is that you have a good time doing ridiculous shit. it really builds a connection between you, your hellers, and really the entire campus.
that being said, there are people who have bad hell week experiences. there’s a LOT of drinking throughout the entire week, and sometimes someone just might choose a shitty heller who doesn’t respect their boundaries. that’s why it’s the heller’s responsibility to give their kid a questionnaire, and both hellers and hellees go through a training session before hell week so they have a better understanding of what they’re getting into. because of this, however, there is a lot of misinformation from people who are outside of bryn mawr, since they only see and report on the bad experiences and generally have a misinformed idea of hell week. it’s not at all representative of the tradition.
hell week went through an overhaul two years, but there’s no way bmc will ever get rid of it. most of the changes were in the names: it’s no longer officially called hell week, but wtf (welcome the first years) week. instead of hellers and hellees, there are roses and buds. basically no one actually uses those names, though, it’s only for official traditions stuff. the names of the campus-wide events were changed so instead of things like trials it’s the athena awards. also, there’s no more streaking allowed at the goodhart performances since goodhart auditorium is a closed space, and traditions is transparent that it only lasts three days instead of a whole week (hence the name hell week. it was a surprise when it ended on the third day instead of there being a full week of tasks). and you can’t perform tasks in erdman dining hall (erdman used to be the task-friendly dining hall while haffner/new dorm used to be the task-free dining hall). most of the changes were pretty minute and didn’t/don’t affect the tradition too much. (if i missed any, upperclasspeople who follow this blog please let me know!! this is all i can think of right now)
hope this helps! sorry for the huge wall of text, i tried to be as informative and detailed as possible. if you have any other questions, let us know!
