Some people think college students are too old for Halloween, but we couldn’t disagree more. In fact, the holiday is so central to the Fairfield experience that the senior class is now frantically debating whether or not the Halloween season begins on Friday night or Saturday night.
Never mind the reality that the holiday actually starts and ends on Tuesday, when elementary school children across the country will hit the roads with masks on their faces and plastic candy-collecting pumpkins in their hands. Fairfield seniors love the holiday so much that they’re trying to turn it from a holiday into a week-long festival. And when one Fairfield senior asked classmates in an e-mail message on Tuesday to not wear their costumes on Thursday because it was her birthday, she got more than a few messages of disapproval.
But whether or not a birthday should be overshadowed by a holiday is not the point. What we find amusing is the fascination college students have with a holiday that is supposed to be reserved for people who play little league, study long division and learn how to write in cursive. It may seem like an odd fascination, but we think its one worth having.
Many students, ourselves included, spend hours each day thinking of excuses to drink on week nights, and even more time thinking about ideas for theme parties. So the week-long festival that Halloween has become gives students an opportunity to put all that brainpower to use.
This page dedicates a lot of space to sophisticated causes like the administration’s efforts to increase diversity, the need for more on-campus housing, and the value of a Fairfield education. But we think it’s important to keep in mind that what goes on inside the University’s academic environment is only a small part of the college experience.
College is about books and term papers, to be sure, but it’s also about having the time of your life while you’re young enough to enjoy it.
With that in mind, have a happy Halloween, no matter when you think it starts.
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