Around the Water Cooler: Wherein We Choose Our Classes

Isn't shopping period fun? For many, it means minimal academic work, maximal social life, and hoping for the best when school really starts to pick up.

A lot of Ivy League teams seem to take similar strategies in out-of-conference play. What could be more fun than winning an easy blow-out victory over a winless team? Of course, easy victories aren't necessarily the best way to prepare for the wear and tear of the conference season.

In this edition of the Back Page, we look at five Ivy teams which have had some success in the early season. One team will coast to an Easy A, two will have to cram for the occasional midterm, and two will end up pulling frequent all-nighters, wondering how the could have misread the Q guide so badly.

It seemed as if the entire campus erupted when No. 10 Harvard topped No. 13 Stanford in men's soccer, but up north, fans clad in green have had reason to celebrate as well. Up in Hanover, NH, the Dartmouth men used four second half goals to top Holy Cross, 4-1. The Big Green women, meanwhile, posted a 1-0 victory over Northeastern. A year ago, the Huskies and the Crimson both beat Brown by the same score, 1-0. Meanwhile, Harvard's men's and women's soccer teams both beat their Dartmouth counterparts by a score of 2-1 last fall. The women's team's victory over Northeastern likely precludes another close match, while the men's victory does little to indicate what will happen when the Crimson and Big Green tangle once more. Dartmouth's road through the Ancient Eight will be anything but easy, but the Big Green has what it takes for another competitive year on both the women's and men's sides.

League juggernaut Princeton doesn't look to be slowing down any in field hockey. The Tigers, which blanked Harvard 9-0 en route to a run to the NCAA semifinals, were picked fourth in the Kookaburra/NFHCA Division I Preseason Poll and opened their season with a 7-0 victory over Bucknell on Saturday. The winless Bison likely won't be the last to suffer such a fate at the hands of Princeton. Expect the Tigers accumulate easy conference victories and make another deep run in the postseason.

Speaking of 7-0 wins over winless opponents, the Cornell women's soccer team had some fun this past Saturday against Delaware State, toppling the Hornets by that same score. If Delaware State had a better record, the win might signal some change in the Ivy League hierarchy. But the Hornets had already lost 7-0 before they fell to the Big Red and lost 6-0 the game before. So Cornell's big win probably won't translate into Ivy dominance down the road.

Meanwhile in Philadelphia, the Quakers men’s soccer team topped winless La Salle by a score of 5-0 on the same Saturday. Last year, Penn finished tied for fifth in the league with a 2-4-1 record. The Quakers played well in some games, pushing the Crimson to the limit in a 1-0 loss. But more often, Penn was defined by mediocrity, and the win over the Explorers doesn't suggest any change.