The sun went down and the moon came out for a night of spooky games and memories for students who wanted to get in the Halloween spirit.
Escape rooms, photo booths and DJ Kay Rich were all part of the University Student Union (USU) Production themed Halloween Spooktacular event on Wednesday, Oct. 27.
The free event put on by the USU Production team was filled with three differently themed escape rooms where students who attended could go in groups and try to figure out Halloween themed mysteries. With only fifteen minutes in each room, students were paired with random people where they had the chance to solve a zombie frequency test, a mob murder and a chess themed puzzle.
Samantha Ford, a sophomore majoring in sports and entertainment facilities management, was one of the facilitators of the event.
Ford said that the focus of every event is to help give students a chance to meet someone new and make friends, even if they’re shy about attending events on campus.
“I would say if you don’t have a friend group just come out, get the free stuff, get the free food and you might meet someone in line in front of you or behind you,” Ford said. “The people that come here often are very friendly.”
Jessica Carranza, a freshman majoring in liberal studies and her friend Andrea Valdez, a freshman majoring in criminology, used to be some of those shy students who were unsure about attending events on campus.
Carranza said that she hopes that other students who are shy take the chance to show up to the events like they did.
“I recommend that they come because we used to be like that but we’re here now and like we got to meet new people,” Valdez said. “I’m just glad I came for the experience.”
“People here don’t judge anybody. So you can come and just meet new people and if you’re shy you can participate in stuff,” Carranza said.
With different activities such as the photo booth, a caricature artist table and a zombie walk hosted by DJ Kay Rich going on, the students were drawn to the main attraction of the escape rooms the most.
Lady Abangan, a senior nursing major, said she appreciates the fact that the USU production team puts these events on free of charge since going to escape rooms can be expensive.
“Do you know how expensive escape rooms are? This is, like, free,” Abangan said. “I definitely appreciate the fact that the student body is like doing all of this stuff because with all the stress that comes with school it’s just really nice to just hang out with my friends and have fun.”
Carranza, whose last semester was online, said that having the chance to do the escape rooms in person was something she enjoyed because she had the chance to meet new people.
“I feel like if it wasn’t for going to these escape rooms in groups then we wouldn’t have met them,” Carranza said.
Ford said she appreciated the crowd that showed up and participated in the activities, and hopes that when students show up to these events it helps relieve any stress they may have.
“I always love when the crowd that we get come[s] because they want to be involved and so the people that do come are very excited,” Ford said. “I feel like all our events are just to relieve stress and have a good time and bring a little bit of recreation into people’s days.”
Ford shared a message of confidence to anyone who was interested in going to future events on campus: take that first step and show up.
“If you’re scared, just do it and take the first step because if you don’t it’s worse to have regrets than be a little bit nervous when you’re stepping out of the box,” Ford said.
