Once a year, college students can relive their preschool days and work on a messy art project – carving a pumpkin. If only glitter was involved.

“My favorite part has always been getting my hands messy with the pumpkin goop,” said Phil Doyle, senior in FAA.

College students are adults, but that term is open to interpretation.

“I love carving pumpkins. It’s part of Halloween, so I love doing it,” said Ashley Crader, junior in LAS.

If you want to be serious about carving pumpkins, there’s an intricate process to it.

“Usually, I stencil out a drawing and then use a pointed tool to transfer the stencil drawing to the pumpkin,” said Lauren Simon, freshman in ACES. “Then I actually carve the pumpkin along the outlines.”

The designs vary widely.

“I remember we made a Superman jack o’ lantern once and a black cat. I wrote my name in cursive once and did a good job with it,” Crader said. “I got the curves right and everything.”

But it’s not all cute; it can be scary, too.

“I especially like carving skeletons and demonic faces,” Simon said.

If you carve a pumpkin this year, don’t forget to save the seeds.

“I went over to a friend’s house to carve pumpkins (when I was younger),” Crader said. “My friend’s mom baked the pumpkin seeds and I remember loving them. I haven’t had any as good since.”

But be careful not to leave the seeds in the oven for too long.

“Once, we roasted the seeds while we carved the pumpkin and forgot about them. While we were carving the pumpkin, we heard them exploding inside the oven and took them out,” said Paul Gayed, senior in AHS. “For the next few minutes, they would occasionally pop and we had to duck and cover to keep from getting hit.”

Pumpkin carving is another Halloween activity that makes for group fun whether you’re at home with family or spending time with friends.

“I enjoy pumpkin carving because it gives me a chance to be with people I like during the fall, drinking apple cider,” Simon said.

It could even potentially extend to the entire community.

“Every once in a while I’ll still carve a pumpkin,” Doyle said. “If they had a mass carving on the Quad, I would totally go. There would be like 40,000 pumpkins. That’s a lot of pumpkins.”