Current Traditions
All incoming students (freshmen and transferees), as parts of their initiation rites into the university, known as the Thomasian Welcome Walk are required to pass through under the Arch. Candidates for graduation, on the other hand, also pass through under the Arch during a parade after their Baccalaureate Mass. This tradition started on June 2002. Fireworks display ends the passage and signals the party afterwards. The parade, either of freshmen or graduating seniors, is done per college/faculty in random order.
There is an old superstition that while studying at the university, one should not pass under the arch until he graduates. If done so, an event will happen that will bar his graduation from the university.
Read more about this topic: Arch Of The Centuries
Famous quotes containing the words current and/or traditions:
“Through this broad street, restless ever,
Ebbs and flows a human tide,
Wave on wave a living river;
Wealth and fashion side by side;
Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quick current glide.”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
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—Guillaume-Prosper, Baron De Barante (1782–1866)