It's that time of year!

I can feel it – fall is here! Football season in Clemson brings tons of fans, food, and fun events! I have been super busy so I am a little behind in blogging! The first week of September marked that final countdown to the first football game of the season! As a sorority woman I was very excited to get involved in pomping our float for the First Friday Parade! Pomping may be an unfamiliar term to you. It certainly was for me my freshman year! Basically, we attach chicken wire to a trailer and we stick small squares of tissue paper in the wire to form designs, write words, and even create an awesome Tiger! If that doesn’t make any sense at all view the final project in the picture above! It was hard work, but it was a great way for me to bond with our new sisters that rushed this fall! The parade takes place the Friday afternoon before the first football game! All 11 sororities participate as well as other organizations and clubs on campus. Our theme this year was “Kicking off a Decade of Domination” and we ran with it! Each pledge class dressed in different decades: seniors 80’s, juniors 90’s, sophomore’s 70’s, and the new pledge class dressed in futuristic outfits! We had a ton of fun picking out our outfits! I looked “great” in my high wasted jeans shorts and a hair scrunchi! Even better, all of our hard work that week paid off! My sorority took 3rd place in the float competition! All of the hard work was worth it and the entire week had me pumped up for Saturday’s game!





I sat on the block with my sisters and tailgated the day away with my close family and friends! The food was delicious and the day was beautiful! I always get chills during the most exciting “25 seconds of college football:” when the tigers run down the hill! As a student this ritual has become even more important to me! I love swaying with my sisters as we sing the Clemson Alma mater. All of these moments are so special and I would not experience them if I weren’t a Clemson Tiger. I look at our campus on game day and all I see is a sea of orange and white with a beautiful backdrop of Tillman Hall, the stadium, and even Lake Hartwell. I am lucky to call this place my home away from home.

Is there a class on the CAT BUS?

I’m so happy to be back at Clemson! It is a major change from the quiet campus I visited this summer! There are so many new students around campus! It was wonderful to see all of my friends again who live outside of South Carolina and those who studied abroad! This year, I am beginning a new experience at Clemson. I am taking part in apartment living! I really enjoy it, but it is definitely a change to live with 3 other girls! I enjoy being able to cook and have my own room again! However, yesterday was our first day of classes and you have to do a little more planning to make sure you get to class on time!
I am currently learning how to use the CAT Bus system…I made it to class on time yesterday, but ended up walking the entire length of campus from Holtzendorf (downtown) to R1 (“the Pit” on Cherry Road after class), because I just wasn’t sure which route to take…East? West? Orange? Purple? This thing is confusing! One of my roommates and I are going to attempt to take the bus from our apartment to campus today so have your fingers crossed that it is a success!
To close, I just want to reiterate how excited I am to see so many new Tigers around me! I have so many plans to get more involved this year outside of the Trustees Office and my sorority. You will be hearing a lot about Clemson TV (CTV) College Republicans, Feel Good, and a host of other projects and activities that I will get involved in this year! I hope my 3rd year experience will continue to spark your interest in a 1st year experience at Clemson University!

Hoppy Easter!

I hope everyone had a great Easter Sunday! It was a beautiful weekend in Clemson, but there were very few people here this weekend! Everyone headed home for Easter! These are few, rare occurrences at Clemson, but I think it gives you the opportunity to really enjoy campus and have some time to yourself! It gets hard having a roommate 24/7!


Fortunately, I didn’t have much time to myself, because Saturday afternoon I head to Atlanta. I had the opportunity to see my cousin get baptized on Easter Eve in a beautiful church in downtown Atlanta! Atlanta was less than two hours from Clemson and the drive flew by! Not to mention we passed the Tanger Outlets on I-85 which were probably only 45 minutes from Clemson! I will definitely visit the outlets before the end of the semester!


We had dinner at a beautiful restaurant called Canoe. It was on the Chattahoochee River and the setting was so pretty! We have tons of pictures from the event! We had an extravagant dinner inside the restaurant and Eryn opened all of her wonderful gifts from her family, family, and the Easter Bunny! The service was also beautiful, and it the practices from the service went back to ancient times! I found out that Easter Eve used to be the only opportunity that someone could be baptized.
Back in Clemson on Sunday, it was hard to focus on work after such an exciting weekend and with the weather man telling me it was 85 and sunny! I went to Hendrix to work on a project, but found myself very distracted by the Frisbee players, football throwers, and sun tanners laying out on “Lever Beach” (behind Lever, the high rise in the Horseshoe.) I had to move to a different study area in Hendrix with no windows to get my work done! Hendrix is a great place to study and once I eliminated my distractions, I got a lot of work done! Words of advice: When trying to study, eliminate distractions. When trying to procrastinate, create distractions! The ladder is probably not the best idea though!


My work continued until I got a call from a friend that told me they were having an Easter Feast and they were going for a boat ride on Lake Hartwell! I decided to join them for the evening and enjoy a sunset on the lake. This is something I truly love about Clemson! I grew up going to the lake on the weekends and spending time with my family and friends on the boat. In Clemson I can experience this nostalgia! I hope everyone enjoyed their Easter weekend as much as I did! I will be thinking about it all week, because I have a very busy weeks of papers and projects ahead of me!

I'm an ETV Employee!

Can I get a round of applause anyone? I was selected as an SC ETV Intern this summer! However, I wasn’t chosen as a candidate for “Your Day” in Clemson. I was chosen for “Making it Grow!” which is based out of Sumter, South Carolina and it is conveniently only a thirty minute commute from my hometown of Camden! I found out over Spring Break that I was chosen for the position! I talked to Vic Miller, who is the manager at ETV in Sumter. He is very excited to take me on as a summer intern and I will begin work in late May! My schedule will be 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. most Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. On Tuesdays I won’t go in until 1 p.m., but I will generally work until 9 p.m. The show “Making it Grow” is taped live every Tuesday night and I will get the experience to see them film live! This is an experience that I am so very excited about and I can’t wait to share more with you once I begin! When I talked to Vic he told me that on some Wednesday’s we will be doing field work. We will drive all over South Carolina to obtain footage for upcoming shows!
He said I will get a full range of production experience including assisting in the studio and field productions to including helping with set up, note taking, etc. I am going to get the opportunity to operate cameras and even partake in the taping of live shows! He said I may also have the opportunity to spend some time in the control room operating graphics or answer the phones during live shows.
And here is good news! I am being paid for all of the fun I am going to have! I can’t wait! On another happy note! The weather is beautiful today in Clemson! Sunny and 65! Wish you were here!

The Interview.

This morning at 9 AM I had my interview with ETV Endowment's "Your Day!" I woke up at 8 AM just to make sure that my voice didn't sound groggy when I was on the phone! Silly, I know, but you have to do everything to prepare your voice! That is all they could hear! Little did they know I was sitting in my pajama's with a cup of coffee! (I could get used to phone interviews!) The conversation lasted about 20 minutes and he asked me a bunch of different questions. Here were some of them:

1. What do you think you will gain from an internship with ETV Endowment's "Your Day?"


2. What type of relationship do you feel a supervisor and a subordinate should have?

3. What kind of conflicts have you recently faced that you believe taught you something?

4. How do you feel past experiences will help you succeed in this internship?

He asked me four more questions that I am blanking on right now, but I was super excited throughout the whole interview and I hope it paid off! I should find out if I have a position in early April and I will let you know!

For now, I'm just trying to stay dry on this rainy day in March! It was such a beautiful spring day yesterday and now it is chilly and wet! I'm going to a Clemson soccer game against Wofford tonight (if it doesn't get rained out!) I will let you know how that turns out tomorrow!

See ya!

Good news everyone!

I am so excited to announce that I am officially a Communication Studies major! I found out on Friday afternoon via email that I was accepted to the major! I was filled with so much relief and excitement that I started crying! I was on the phone with my friend Elly when I got the news and we were both screaming at each other out of excitement! It was pretty funny! One of my sorority sisters heard me screaming the great news and she gave me a huge hug!


I immediately went to Strode to complete my change of major card so that I could truly make it official! Filling out the paper work I wrote Communication Studies major on the line that asked for my major. It was a strangely special moment. I called my sister and my Dad to let them know about the good news! They were so proud of me and I was really proud of me. I thought this was a great way to start my weekend, but the news got even better that afternoon after I left the Trustees Office…


I applied for an internship with ETV’s “Your Day.” This summer Clemson is offering a ten week internship with “Your Day” which is the radio show on ETV. I was super excited about the opportunity to stay in Clemson this summer and get some radio experience! However, I wasn’t holding my breath, because they had over 65 applicants and they are only taking 7 interns! I received a call from ETV Friday afternoon and they informed me that I had made it through the first round of the selection process! The second part of the process is a phone interview! I set up an appointment with ETV and I have already begun preparing for the interview! I will keep you updated on the internship, but win or lose; I am still a Communication Studies major which is such a great accomplishment!

Camping in Clemson!

There are countless reasons I love living in Clemson, South Carolina and one of them is the weather! It is always changing! Two weeks ago we had snow and the weather man is calling for snow later this week, but with South Carolina’s ever-changing climate it was warm enough to wear shorts last weekend! I took advantage of this warm weather and packed my back pack for a camping trip! On Saturday, a friend of mine asked me if I would like to go camping and I decided to take a chance and go. Let me tell you that I have never been camping in my entire life and I had no idea what to expect, but it was an adventure that I will never forget. Before last weekend I didn’t know the first thing about pitching a tent, starting a fire, or how to tie boy scout knots, but I am so glad that I decided to go! The weather was beautiful and the place we camped was literally a fifteen minute drive from campus. I didn’t even have to leave Clemson to enjoy Mother Nature!

I would like to share with you some of the things that I learned how to do this weekend. Some of this may be common sense to you, but you might learn something new just like me too! We rented our camping equipment from Fike Recreation Center on campus and then went to Wal-Mart and picked up some supplies like food, matches, and other bare necessities. I was told to pack light, but my load was definitely heavy! From the beginning of the day, the trip was an adventure. Just picking out our campsite and hiking our stuff down was a lot of work! The first thing we did was set up the tent and sleeping bags. Setting up the tent was nothing like you see in the movies where they spend three hours trying to stick the stakes in the ground and the tent ends up lopsided. Our tent went up with no trouble at all!

My next lesson was making a fire. We had to clear the land so we didn’t have to worry about catching things on fire! Then we had to collect kindling and firewood. I wasn’t very good at this…Ha-ha! I mainly sat back and watched this happen! I have a lot more observing to do before I feel comfortable building a fire by myself! Once the fire was blazing, my next lesson was to learn about different knots. Again, I wasn’t very successful with this…It took me A LOT of tries to successfully tie the knot I was being taught. It was definitely frustrating, but I finally got it!

For dinner we decided to cook steak with peppers, zucchini, and potatoes! Yum! We definitely bought too much food! I learned that the meal we cooked was called a Hobo dinner, like poor man’s food, but it didn’t taste like a poor man’s dinner! For the rest of the evening, we told each other pointless stories by the fire. We called it a night early, because it was starting to get really cold. This was something that I wasn’t prepared for! I had a few layers of clothes, but I couldn’t keep my face warm! Ha-ha! I spent all night rolling around trying to keep my face warm. After awhile, I got comfortable and fell asleep.

Around 8:30, I woke up to the sound of birds chirping and a wood pecker pecking away at a tree. That is an experience that I will never forget. It was such a peaceful way to wake up. No alarm clocks, just nature gently waking you. We cooked the rest of our steak for breakfast and made scrambled eggs and oatmeal. Another tasty and successful meal! We packed up our gear and headed to my car later that afternoon.

My first camping trip is something that I will always remember. This trip will be especially memorable, because I did it while I was a Clemson student and I took this trip with people who are important to my Clemson experience. Camping is something unique to Clemson University and it is an activity that most college students can’t participate in fifteen minutes from campus! I hope to go camping again this semester with more of my friends so that I can share what I have learned with them. Maybe I will even get more experienced with building fires and knot tying!

Why I Became A Tiger.

(Left to Right:) Me and my sister Mandy

From the title of my blog it is pretty obvious that you will be reading about my experience as a student at Clemson University in beautiful Clemson, South Carolina. Before I start blogging my heart out about why you want to be a tiger too, I want to give you some basic facts about me and tell you why I chose to call Clemson home the next few years.

1. My name is Hope Snipes and I am a sophomore at Clemson University.

2. I am originally from Camden, South Carolina.

3. I am currently undeclared and applying to the Communication Studies major!

4. Both of my parents are Clemson graduates and my sister will be a graduate in May!


You may wonder why I chose to become a Tiger. Well, it wasn't an easy decision. I thought that I had outgrown small town life and I wanted to attend college in the big city of Charleston. Charleston is a beautiful city on the coast of South Carolina full of historic buildings and sites. In addition to wanting to live the high life in Charleston, I wanted to make a move that would surprise my parents and allow me to step out of my older sister's shadow. She was a sophomore at Clemson when I was applying to schools and Clemson was the last place I wanted to go. However, to appease my parents, I applied. I received my acceptance letters for the other two schools I applied to and my parents were biting their nails waiting to hear from Clemson. When the large white envelope arrived they knew I had been accepted, but they waited patiently for me to return from volleyball practice to open it. I opened the envelope, read my letter of acceptance, and then casually threw the papers on the counter. I told my parents I was still headed to Charleston in the fall and they were devastated. We argued about it for hours, but I had made up my mind.

Then one weekend during the spring of my senior year my sister, Mandy, invited me to stay with her for the weekend. I was coaching a 12's volleyball tournament that weekend in the area so I figured why not? I cannot describe to you how much fun I had with my sister that weekend. I met her sorority sisters, went out to Monterrey's (a delicious hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant), and shared a lot of laughs. After this weekend, our relationship changed. We were so much closer. Driving out of the Horseshoe on Sunday I had tears in my eyes and I couldn't imagine being on the opposite side of the state from my sister. When I got home I walked into the kitchen and my mom asked me about my weekend. I told her that I had a great time, but I was very vague about the details. As I was walking out of the kitchen I stopped, turned around, and said "Oh, yeah. I'm going to Clemson in the fall." My parents were so excited for me. To this day they haven't questioned what changed my mind. All they cared about was that now my blood ran orange.