The Ole Miss Student Activities Association held its annual Fall Fest in front of the Gertrude C. Ford Ole Miss Student Union on Tuesday, Oct. 27. The event gave students an opportunity to celebrate the spooky season with fun activities and delicious food.
“We have little corn mazes — it’s just like a blow-up maze, but it’s super fun,” SAA member Alli Gaetti, a freshman majoring in entrepreneurship from Houston, said. “We have a pumpkin patch, which is really fun, and face painting. We have caramel apples, funnel cakes, lemonades and a movie night.”
SAA advertised Fall Fest on its Instagram page, where it encouraged students to participate. Bren Schweigart, a junior psychology major from Oxford, attended the event after seeing promotions online.
“We saw the SAA post on Instagram that there was a fall festival,” Schweigart said. “We’re on campus until 5 o’clock (p.m.) anyway, so we just hung out.”
Students described the atmosphere as laid-back. The festival provided an opportunity to relax during the chaos of the month.
“(It’s been) pretty fun, but chill,” Lexys Lopez, a junior economics major from Gainesville, Fla., said. “(The festival was) not crowded. I really like it, it’s very nice.”
For some international students, Fall Fest offered an authentic Halloween experience that has never been available to them.
“Americans are famous for the Halloween culture, and I really wanted to experience the kind of American culture in Halloween time,” Ren Koketsu, a foreign exchange student from Japan majoring in political science, said.
SAA put the festival together in hopes that students would remember they are part of a larger community on campus.
“I think it’s really important to just have those free things that can just really let different students interact on campus and feel like they have somewhere to go,” Gaetti said.
According to students who attended, SAA’s goal was successful, and the opportunity was not taken for granted.
“You know it’s fun and easy when we’ve both been in class for at least five hours today, and we’re coming out of class saying, ‘Instead of going home, let’s go back to school and go do something more fun and exciting,’” Schweigart said.
Gaetti said that Fall Fest was a chance for students to develop a sense of belonging by interacting with others.
“It’s a way for students to just really feel more loved and seen here at Ole Miss, because I feel like it’s really hard at a big school to find that small-knit community,” Gaetti said. “Things like this allow you to meet new people or going out of campus or out of your way.”
