Numbered beanies adorned UC San Diego ’ s first 185 freshman undergraduates ( below ) during orientation week in 1964 . Students would go on to create the university ’ s most nontraditional events , like the Watermelon Drop in 1965 and , years later , the Snowball Fiesta at Muir College in 1976 .
Photos courtesy UC San Diego Mandeville Special Collections Library / Scripps Institution of Oceanography Archives .
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Face it , Tritons — we ’ re different .
We come from a different kind of university . We ’ re not big on bricks and ivy — our league is another entirely . One that stretches across oceans , that dives as deep into DNA as it does modern dance . Ours is a campus where theories are posed and boundaries are broken , where conventions are shaken and new concepts are king .
This all began in 1960 , when UC San Diego was itself just a concept , and there was one man who could see it clearest : Roger Revelle . He could see it — all of us learning , graduating and going on to make our impact on the world . Revelle saw greatness and recruited the brightest minds of his time , hand-picking faculty and a graduate student body that led our legacy of discovery .
In 1964 , when the U . S . Marine Corps gave our first Chancellor Herbert York the land that held the former Camp Matthews , our founders took that military base and made the academic marvel we ’ re all now a part of . On fields that once held target practice , undergraduate minds were sharpened and challenged to shoot for stars . We took classes in Quonset huts and the barracks became our bookstore . No other alumni have such bootstrap beginnings — we made ourselves from scratch here on the cliffs , treading upon eucalyptus and breathing in the sea salt as we studied .
And boy , did we study . You don ’ t become one of the top 15 research institutions in the world by resting on laurels . This history of distinction rests upon you , Tritons . You made this university as much as it made you . You make up our tradition of nontradition . This is how it began , and you are how it continues .
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