by Sarah Kelly, student editor—When I step on campus at Wadsworth Hall, I can already hear the music that is pounding from the gigantic snow speakers where a DJ entertains a mass of excited students. There is an intense energy as I pass other peers.  Some are heading to their dorms, some are working on the smaller statues, and others are trying to find their friends.

The Winter Carnival All-Nighter gives students a chance to take a break from the stress of the upcoming midterms and homework. Everyone, even faculty, welcomes the break. 

“It’s perfect chaos,” says Paige Thermos, a first-year general engineering major, “I should have worn snow pants, but it’s fun.” The bitter cold winter weather that Michigan Tech has been battling has not frozen the enthusiasm of the campus tonight. Inside Fisher Hall, people are packed into corners and booths while they smile and hug friends or eat pancakes. In Rekhi Hall, someone has set up a virtual fireplace that has been projected on the wall to keep students “warm.”

I make my way through the mass of people in Fisher and move back outside. I smile and say hi to everyone who I recognize and ask others if I can take their photo. They happily pose for the camera. As a student, I enjoy how packed campus is during the first night of Winter Carnival. I like walking around outside and watching snow statues being built or seeing everyone come out to be on campus. There is a feeling of camaraderie. It doesn’t matter what your major is or who you are; tonight everyone is a friend and everyone is welcomed.

I can see people munching on pasties that are being sold from the Engineers Without Borders student organization. Eventually I find a blue canopy where some Air Force ROTC cadets are selling grilled cheese for a dollar.  It sounds like a great investment to me. Cadet Troy Drabek says that passing out grilled cheese tonight has been fun. “It’s my fifth year doing it, and people are a lot peppier tonight than they have been in past years.”

Food on campus also includes hot coffee in the Hamar House and ghost pepper hot chocolate, being sold in front of the MUB, that only the bravest of Huskies would dare to try.

Students either dance the night away by the snow speakers or work diligently on their statues all through the night. I, however, head home a little early and try to fall asleep among the excitement of being a Husky during Winter Carnival.