Most outgoing Jumbos will go on to lead careers in a wide array of fields in all corners of the world; many will become lawyers, doctors or politicians or spend time living abroad.
But a few might find that their careers land them right back on the Hill.
Currently, there are a large number of alumni working for the university, most of whom initially worked for other organizations. By getting involved in alumni events and groups, these former students remained close to the school and eventually accepted job opportunities here.
Such Jumbos have the unique position of being able to witness the changing landscape of Tufts and to compare their own college experiences to the lives of current students.
Usha Sellers (J '58), who graduated from Tufts in 1958 and is now the program director for the alumni relations department, remembers the more formal manner in which students dressed when she lived on the Hill.
"[The] mode of campus student dress then was what is today known as 'smart casual,'" Sellers said in an e-mail. "Men students wore chinos, collared shirts and white bucks [shoes]; women wore collared blouses, skirts and 'bobby socks' and shoes similar to white bucks. Similarly, faculty dress was suits, jackets and ties."
Sellers came to Tufts from India in 1953 when she was only 16 years old. At the time, there were fewer international students, and many Jumbos commuted to campus from neighboring towns. Despite her international background, Sellers said she felt welcome at Tufts.
"All of the above was new for me, and thus part of my favorite memories," Sellers said. "I also remember my classmates being very friendly and open and inviting me to their homes over spring recess and other holidays as gestures of American friendship."
Years ago, Tufts was virtually split into two campuses, with the men living uphill and the women - who were technically students of Jackson College - living downhill. Save for particularly cold days, when they were permitted to wear pants, women were required to wear skirts when attending class on the Hill.
When Sellers was at Tufts, women had sit-down dinners in Hodgdon Hall on weeknights, during which students took turns serving their classmates.
Betsey Anderson, the university budget director, graduated from Tufts in 1964 and joked about how different the campus looked when she attended college.
"I lived in Tilton the first year it was built. Now it probably looks old, but in those days it was modern," she said.
When Linda Dixon (J '63), secretary of the corporation for the Board of Trustees, came to Tufts in 1959, no students had phones in their rooms - instead, a switchboard and reception desk was installed in the lobby of a dorm. This meant that if a student received a phone call, a receptionist would make an announcement over a loudspeaker to inform the students who had received a phone call.
According to Dixon, students eagerly waited for phone calls.
"Every woman, of course, was geared to a phone call because it might be a man," Dixon said. "So if you got one, you would lean over and yell into the speakerphone that you'd be right there, and then you'd run down to the alcove."
But if another student was already on the phone, the receptionist would look at the switchboard to see if another extension was free, and then that student would be forced to run to another wing of the dorm.
Dixon remembers these phone extensions fondly because she said they played a role in her own love life back in college.
"This is how I met my heartthrob steady boyfriend," Dixon said.
"So we went on a blind date to a concert. Afterwards we went to the ATO house. He was in ATO and I was in [Alpha Omicron Pi]. We get there, and his fraternity brother was on a blind date with my sorority sister. The four of us sit down together and start hanging out," Dixon said. "Well, I am smitten with the other guy. It was one of those instant chemistry things. I'm just taken with this fellow. So the next day, Sunday afternoon in the shower, covered with soap suds, I hear the PA system say, 'Linda Dixon, you have a phone call.' So I run up to the other floor in my towel, what do I care, and it's him! He was calling to ask for a date for the following week. We went out for a year and a half and we're still great friends."
Both Dixon and Anderson remember the controversy caused by the removal of a Coca-Cola machine from Hodgdon Hall.
"The biggest conflict which occurred was because of a soda machine heading down to the cafeteria," Dixon said. "One day, the dean decided that this was bad for your teeth and had it removed and replaced with a machine with milk and juice. That caused more furors. That Coke machine practically caused the downfall of the dean. Within a very short time that Coke machine was brought back."
Dorm protocol also told an entirely different story in decades past. In place of residential assistants, dorms had "dorm mothers" who looked over the women living on campus. All dorms, particularly female dorms, had early curfew hours that were strictly upheld - but those students who made the Dean's List were permitted to stay out slightly later.
"One time, by carelessness, I didn't get in at 12; I got in at 12:10, and I had to go in front of the house-mother and a judiciary committee to explain why I was ten minutes late," Dixon said.
When Dixon and Anderson attended Tufts, no men could enter women's dorms except on Sunday afternoons for two hours for visiting hours in the lobby. But because the men's dorms were open during the day, women would sneak in to visit their friends or boyfriends.
"The big issue was keeping the men's dorms open during the day," Anderson said. "There were lots of sort of rules about girls visiting guys and vice versa. It was certainly before the sexual revolution."
Paul Tringale (LA '82), who serves as the director of conferences and summer programs and as the interim director of the Office of Student Activities, came to Tufts in 1978. He recalled what it was like to attend college when virtually all students could legally drink.
"I was on campus when the drinking age was 18, and I don't think that there was more drinking around then than there is now," Tringale said. "[But] I don't think there was less."
At the time, there was a pub in Dewick-MacPhie, which used to house two separate dining halls, one of which transformed into a nighttime campus hotspot.
"They were very traditional dining halls, where you went down the line and people dished out stuff onto your tray," Tringale said. "After hours, Macphie pub was open. That's where everyone went for movies, pub nights, pitchers of beers, entertainers and comedians."
Christine Sanni (LA '89), who now serves as the director of advancement for communications and donor relations at Tufts, laughed when she remembered the first time she had heard of a fax machine.
"I had a work-study job in the Lincoln-Filene building, and there was one major mainframe computer that students worked on. It was massive, something from like a 1950s science fiction movie," Sanni said. "One day my boss said to me, 'You have to go to Ballou Hall and pick up a facsimile for me.' And I was like, 'What's a facsimile?' At the time there was only one fax machine on campus, and you had to go to Ballou Hall [to use it]."
According to Tufts employees, what has not changed about the university is the outstanding quality of its professors. Sanni said that she fondly remembers the close relationships that she developed with faculty members.
"I had friends at Harvard who were being taught by TAs, and I was going over to professors' houses for dinner," Sanni said.
In fact, Sanni's favorite professor, Judith Haber, still teaches English at Tufts.
"I took a couple of classes with her on Renaissance and drama," Sanni said. "It was sort of like discovering people who existed then besides Shakespeare. She was great because she's very dramatic. She sort of storms around the room and recites lines. She really got the class going."
For those who spent their college years at Tufts and are now pursuing careers here, new memories are being made on the Hill.
"Tufts was the making of me," Dixon said. "I just instinctively chose the right place to come. I just came into my own here. It was just the right place for me to be; it polished me. It allowed me to bloom."
