I dread Halloween. 

Every year, I wish for the day to go by unnoticed, uncelebrated and virtually ignored by society. And every year I am disappointed because the trick-or-treating children beat on without fail and the onslaught of trashy costumes persists. The truth of the matter is, Halloween intimidates me because I’ve never been one to come up with a creative costume idea. Also, the concept of disguising yourself for a day freaks me out a little. When I arrived at this campus as a freshman, I did not quite understand the magnitude of the Halloween celebration that occurs year after year and thought that I could overcome my distaste for the holiday in the name of having a good time. To avoid any sort of confusion about exactly what the University’s reputation is, here are a few things to expect during Halloween week on campus.

Here at the University, Halloween is not just celebrated on the 31st of October. No, it is observed for an entire week, selfishly consuming the weekend with parties that demand their attendees to wear costumes, causing the University’s Halloween weekends to become infamous. As a result, college students from all over the Midwest flock to our humble Champaign to contribute their own scream mask costumes to the celebrations. 

Many fraternities use the occasion to throw blowout parties that often end up overcrowded and under-stocked, if you catch my drift. While all of the fraternity men hosting these parties will insist that you need to be on some elusive list to attend, they usually end up being a free-for-all and anyone is allowed in. How effective is an orange plastic fence anyway? These gatherings are great for the quintessential college experience that is similar to a scene from a movie, however they are sure to be flooded with freshmen and are not usually attended by the sophisticated upperclassmen.

While the freshmen play dress-up at a fraternity party, the upperclassmen frequent the bar scene on Halloween because waiting in an endless line and paying a ridiculous amount for cover is so much fun. While both the fraternity parties and the bars tend to be overcrowded and slightly terrifying due to all the disguised people operating under an alter ego, the bars have a more equal girl to boy ratio and the music is sure to be Halloween themed. Everyone likes to do their best Michael Jackson impersonation and pretend they know the “Thriller” dance because it’s played at least ten times at Red Lion.

Where you celebrate the over-hyped holiday is nowhere near as important as when. Now, many of you may be thinking — you celebrate on the day of Halloween, duh. And that’s exactly what you would think, but you would be wrong. Because, like I said before, this is a weeklong event and everyone celebrates it on different days, making it very difficult to know exactly when to dress up and when to call it quits on the costume.

Last year, Halloween fell awkwardly in the middle of the week sending the campus into a near frenzy because no one knew which weekend would be dubbed “Halloween weekend.” Because the holiday is such a hit on campus, my friends and I assumed everyone would be dressed up the weekend before and we confidently strode into the bars decked out in costumes. And no, I don’t mean cat ears and a black sweater. I’m talking about hotdog and ketchup body suits, the three witches from “Hocus Pocus” and a zombie covered in white face paint. Unfortunately, we were the only ones who were dressed up and the rest of the bar stared at us the entire night. It was either the best or worst night, I’ll let you decide.

Whether you love Halloween and thrive at creating mind blowing costumes that even Pinterest would be envious of, or, if you’re more like me and prefer a witch hat to reflect your personality, Halloween at the University is an event every student should experience. No matter where you go or what you do, you’re sure to end the weekend with stories you will be proud of.

Kate is a senior in LAS. She can be reached at [email protected].