On Thursday, Oct. 1, the Brandeis Department of Student Engagement along with the Brandeis Department of Orientation and First Year Experience arranged a fall-themed event as part of their First Thursdays initiative. Students signed up through CampusGroups, got an orange-colored wristband and were then free to explore the area. The event featured “Ollie’s Pumpkin Patch,” which hosted a display of pumpkins that students could choose from to either carve or paint. The two stations for carving and painting were displayed in the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium.

The Brandeis Police K-9, Justice, was also present at the event, making rounds in and outside the Campus Center. On the Great Lawn, outside the SCC, there was a bounce house set up with an inflatable slide that individuals could climb in. Continuing the fall theme, students lined up for hot apple cider and mini apple cider donuts. They also had kosher options for students. The festival also had a pumpkin bowling area on the Great Lawn where students could play games and bowl.

Sosie Kae Quarrie, assistant director of Student Engagement Leadership at the Department of Student Engagement, is the mastermind behind every First Thursdays event and other campus events.

For Quarrie, these events are an opportunity to introduce students to experiences they may not have had before. “A lot of students, especially international students or students [that come from places] where fall is not really a thing, have never really gone and picked out their own pumpkin and decorated and carved it,” Quarrie said in an Oct. 5 interview with The Justice. “So I wanted to offer an opportunity, a first experience. That's usually what I like to try to do with all the events that we do.”

Anjali Gnanaratnam ’28 attended the event with her friends, basking in the sun and enjoying the pumpkin carving. “My fall dreams are coming true,” she stated in an Oct. 5 interview with The Justice. Students were immersed in the experience of pumpkin carving by hollowing their pumpkin and cutting out shapes including a jack-o-lantern, an owl and other Halloween scenes. The Brandeis Instagram page wrote in a caption for their collaborative post with DSE, “We’re just here for a gourd time” as a seasonal twist on the phrase, inciting fall imagery of a decorative autumn gourd.

For the painted pumpkin, students made funny, spooky and artistic works on their pumpkin. Many of the pumpkins were humorously personified with painted eyes and faces. Students took their pumpkins to their dorms, decorating their rooms and hallways. Some students also put their painted and carved pumpkins around campus as a reminder that fall is here and an expression of the creativity that floods the student body.

Beyond the activities themselves, Quarrie hopes these events will help students build friendships and feel welcome on campus. “It's super important to give people the opportunities to make memories on campus,” Quarrie said. “It's just giving them that opportunity and giving them the space to make friends or to make memories and to make connections.”

Eli Mishara ’29, a first year ambassador, said, “It was really cool to see a lot of the students talking to each other and being more comfortable with their classmates.”

Events like this particularly help first-year students feel involved on campus. “I see that a lot of the involvement is coming from the first-year students this year. I see their faces all the time in all of our events,” Quarrie said. “They’re still wanting to be engaged because there is something that we're doing that they like.”

Creating these experiences takes months of preparation and coordination across departments. For this event, planning began as early as summer. “It's contracts, it's back and forth on how many pumpkins, it's so much more than just, ‘Okay, yeah, we're gonna do this.’ It takes so much time and effort to plan all the events,” Quarrie said. “It's not just me, it's my whole department, and we partner with first-year orientation as well. I don't do anything alone. It's a bigger group of people that really try to make sure these opportunities are out there for students.”

During last semester’s First Thursdays, the Department of Orientation and First Year Experiences curated a similar event held in the Levin Ballroom with a pumpkin bounce house, pumpkin painting and fall-themed green screen photos. They also had DIY fall-themed crafts and customizable tote bags with block prints as well as markers to draw designs they desired. Another event they did was Painting Poetry which had mugs and bowls students could create designs on. There were also donuts laid out in fall flavors with Angel Tea boba.

After that, they did a winter fest with snacks, hot chocolate, crafts, DIY picture frames, mini owls, magnets and cookie decorating as well as arcade games. A big event for the department was Ragefest located in the SCC Atrium, where some students wore white suits and painted with neon colors while others smashed items with a baseball bat in a safe and controlled environment.

Student feedback also helps shape the department’s plans. “We also send out surveys at the end to kind of get feedback on how we can make it better,” Quarrie said. “And I think by us, again, listening to the students, they come to our events because they see that we're putting an effort to listen to them and give them what they're wanting to do.”

The department is already preparing for upcoming First Thursdays, including a roller rink skate night in February and larger events in December and May. For now, the fall festival stands out as Quarrie’s favorite. “I would definitely say this fall festival pumpkin patch was my favorite one so far,” Quarrie said. “I'm really excited for the one in December and the one in May because that's … just gonna be bigger than what we would normally do on a First Thursday because it involves more things and more people.”

That goal is what guides Quarrie’s work. “To me, that's my whole purpose of my job, and that's my whole goal in my career is to give students space to make friends, and find a sense of belonging, and feel welcome, whether they come into something alone and they leave with a friend, or they come in with a group of people,” Quarrie said.

As DSE continues their First Thursdays, students look forward to being a part of many more activities.