Hoch Hearts and Valentine’s Day at Mudd

Mudd has many wonderful traditions, but February brings my favorite of them! Near the beginning of the month, “Hoch Hearts” go up in our dining hall, placed by the Division of Student Affairs’ Muchachos, a group of students that organize fun events throughout the semester. The Hoch hearts are paper cut out hearts–one for each student, faculty member, and staff–with each person’s name on them. They’re sorted into students or faculty and staff, then arranged alphabetically. For about two weeks, Mudders take the time to walk around with a pen and write inside jokes, kind messages, or anything else to show their love for other Mudders on them. On Valentine’s Day, everyone takes the heart with their name on it home after dinner.

One of the walls of hearts in the Hoch!

I love this tradition for a lot of reasons. First, it’s just wonderful to walk into the Hoch and see the hearts everywhere. They’re very bright and cheery and colorful! It’s also really cool to see people walking around writing on them as they slowly fill up with messages–a lot of the hearts run out of space. The Hoch hearts also remind me what an amazing community we have–people write messages for friends, for tutors, for mentors, for dormmates, for classmates, for really anyone who has made their day a little brighter. I really treasure the two hearts I have (one paper one from my freshman year and one virtual one from the remote year, when all the hearts went on a google slides presentation!) I know I’m not the only one too–several professors have their hearts from past years posted outside their offices.

Valentine’s Day brings with it other fun too–several dorms have held crafting sessions to make valentines in the past for example, along with other cool events–but the Hoch hearts are my favorite. I’m looking forward to taking mine tonight!