As the day comes to an end, students file into their dorms, checking in at the designated time. While some may finish their homework and go to sleep straight away, many advisors and students work together to create some fun activities on their own. Along with the many trips and activities planned by the Deans of Fun, the fun is not limited to only Wednesdays and weekends. Depending on each dorm, all have different schedules jam-packed with various activities, ranging from movie nights to pizza parties. Boys dorms and girls dorms have a few similar activities and couple of different ones, as well, but, nevertheless, all are still very enjoyable.
Many of the dorms seem to have a running theme relating to food as an activity for their bonding experience. Every week in Cilley, there is always something new to eat, including, many flavors of ice cream that were bought for their ice cream party. There’s also cookie decorating and nacho eating and Oreo night, where they get to play a game of Oreo taste-testing. In Dunbar, there has been a campfire night, where people have gathered around roasting marshmallows, enjoying s’mores. Not only that, but in Amen, they even had a watermelon night! There have a been a few lucky people who get to spend their birthdays here at Exeter, celebrated with cake, cookies or other sweets.
Activities are not only limited to eating. Michael Zhang from Main Street talks about how close he has gotten to his dorm mates. Game night is a favorite of many people in his dorm, Michael says that “monopoly gets pretty intense sometimes”, but he still enjoys it very much. They also like singing together on karaoke night, blasting songs from the Backstreet Boys and other artists. When asked about his favorite activity, he says that his all-time favorite activity would probably be just hanging out in the loft. The boys gather together upstairs talking about “deep stuff”, Michael states. They talk about everything ranging from life problems, to their hopes and dreams for the future, a very good bonding experience.
In Merrill, when asked what she thought about the activities, Carly Kimball from Bennington, New Hampshire, said: “they’re really fun — these activities have really helped bring the dorm closer together. I feel like I know all the girls pretty well now.” She added, “there is always something planned that every girl in my dorm can do and enjoy.” Merrill has already had a movie night, a spa night, where they painted each other’s nails and tried on different face masks, and now the Merri-cles are all looking forward to a henna night, trivia night, and maybe even a friendship bracelet-making night. As we head on to the last week of Exeter Summer, Carly says that she looks forward to many more unplanned movie nights and hangouts with the rest of the girls.