FRESHMAN MIXER 2021: How You Doin
The start of the school year is an exciting time for any freshman. They’re presented with the prospect of new environments, new people, and new opportunities. But because of the pandemic, meeting new people and interacting with the community has proven to be a challenging task. For this reason, the IHM Special Projects Team, decided to host the Freshman Mixer over Zoom last September 27, 2021. The event aimed to give freshmen the opportunity to meet and interact with their batchmates. All the activities and games were themed after popular sitcoms such as “FRIENDS,” “Big Bang Theory,” and “Brooklyn 99”, which proved to be a big hit among all the participants. As Jake Peralta would say, “Let the games begin!”
The event started out with an icebreaker of “Jam-boree Board,” where the participants got to post their social media accounts and interests for everyone to see! Through this activity, the participants were able to follow each other on social media and connect over shared interests. The hosts, Danielle Tensuan and Jose Garcia, then shifted to the main part of the event: the breakout rooms or precincts!
The participants were separated into a total of 6 precincts where they were able to play games with their precinct mates. The first game – “Ross’ Contest” – was inspired by the fiery competition that won Joey and Chandler their new apartment on the popular sitcom: “FRIENDS”. The participants were given an array of fun questions to answer for points. The categories included riddles, music, Netflix, and even Enderun. The participants fought to answer all the questions with a passion that would even intimidate Monica!
The next game was taken from Sheldon and Leonard’s very own game night on the “Big Bang Theory”. In the episode, they played a hilarious game of “Pictionary,” which was replicated for the precincts to play. The participants were given a chance to flex their artistic skills by drawing certain words. At the same time, their precinct mates had to guess what the words were based on the museum-worthy artworks made that night.
The last game transformed the participants into detectives by playing an intense round of “Codenames”. For this game, the participants were separated into teams where they had to guess the right set of words based on the hints given to them by their “Spymaster”. The game truly brought out their inner detective skills, just like Jake and Amy from “Brooklyn 99”.
What a night it definitely was. The event came to an end by recognizing the champions of each breakout room or precinct namely, John Jason Alvarez, Joash Aragon, Annika Mafnas, Juliana Montesclaros, Michaela Escalambre, Jazmyne Chua, and Carlos Ilagan. The winner in each group would be receiving exciting and surprising prizes from the IHM Special Projects Team.
Transitioning to a new school and meeting new people is definitely not an easy task, especially when almost everything is done online these days. The Freshman Mixer became an avenue for the new students to get to bond and have fun despite the virtual set-up. Most of them have mentioned that the games were enjoyable, the facilitators were lively and engaging, and they were able to mingle and interact among themselves. This is not the end, rather just the start of beautiful friendships and more similar events to enjoy in the near future where we can unleash our inner Gina Linetti and be the human form of the 100 emoji.
