Stories of Freshman Screw

Photos by Andrew Goble

Freshman Screw is an experience that most people will never forget (no matter how hard they try). It is a time where your suitemates play matchmaker and everyone gets dressed up. These stories prove that it is always a pretty unconventional night for just about everyone in the end though.

Old Campus must have looked like a madhouse as everyone set out to find their screw date. Some stories were cute:

“My friends gave me a baseball and sent me out to old campus. I had to find the guy with a baseball glove, throw it to him and say, ‘you’re such a good catch’.”

Some, not so cute:

“I got tied to Phelp’s gate and blindfolded…”

After that initial awkward encounter, the night began. Most people met up with their other friends in a suite, some of which held over 60 kids all getting ready for the dance. And from there they went to screw, but as one couple stated:

“We showed up at 10:30. Don’t show up to screw at 10:30.”

The rest of the freshmen were getting acquainted with their dates. While a select few hit it off (and are going out to celebrate Valentine’s Day next week), most did not. Some just never looked interested to start:

“My date seemed pretty uninterested… so I just walked away” (and for the record, didn’t even say goodbye).

Some may have had you convinced otherwise, and then disappeared:

“Well my date said she had to go help a friend, and that was the last time I ever saw her.”

And some may have truly been interested, but just couldn’t handle all that is screw:

“My friend’s date started out the night super excited, but about an hour later she fell asleep on him. Literally on top of him.”

Of course there were some people who may have had a great night, but they will never really know. As two kids put it:

“I’m sure I have a lot of great stories from Screw… I just don’t remember them”

“I’ve been avoiding my date since Saturday because I’m not exactly sure what happened there.”

But in the end what really matters is that we have our friends there to support us when we need them. We can always return to our suite and know that there are people that have our back.

“After we left screw we spent the night taking care of a sick friend in our suite. You know that couch sitting in front of Nathan Hale the day after screw, he threw up on it… multiple times. All the tour groups were sitting on this couch that we left to air out… it was pretty gross.”