Over the last few weeks, many first-years may have received emails regarding an event called First-Year Fall Day, promising joys such as t-shirts, snacks and tote bags to decorate. What the first years may not know, however, is that there is a more literal and ominous background to the tradition that started many years ago.

It’s true that the giving away of t-shirts has always been an important part of the scheme. When fourth week begins and homework picks up, it becomes 40% less likely for new students to leave the libe simply because of an emailed invitation, according to our super thorough and legitimate research. Because of this, the bribe becomes necessary in order to get the first years out of doors – in order to put them right in harm’s way. On this one day of the year, it seems that wherever a first-year goes, there will be a hazard, whether it’s a trip wire, a banana peel, or an unmarked wet floor. Or even a wet floor with a comically unnoticed sign! 

Every year, the college spends nine-hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to understand if this phenomenon is natural or the work of some underground anti-first-year group, and forties of thousands of dollars trying to prevent it, and finally a further thousand dollars providing bandages to those most seriously injured by the falls. 

In the past, these have been common spots and causes for falls:

Banana peels and wet floors in the hallway between the main room and dungeon-esque room at Burton, strings of leaves and decor randomly fallen in dorms and lounges particularly, stray water bottles popping up at the wrong moment in LDC, crabapples seemingly placed in strategic angles from the cracks in the pavement in front of Sayles, and of course, sometimes even a foot stuck out in the Great Hall during the actual event.

But it isn’t all bad – first-year fall day has been fatality-free since 1999! The spirit of the event is not about harming first-years, more about subjecting them to Looney Tunes-like humiliation. After all, it happened to everyone else who goes here, and most people still go here. There have been a couple of student-led protests against the event, which the college has made no comment about or attempt to intervene with. This may simply be because the protests are typically only made by the 2-3 upperclassmen foolish enough to fall for these tricks. In fact, the general invulnerability of upperclassmen is one of the hottest topics in the debate over the background of the event – those who believe it to be a natural phenomenon argue that the upperclassmen simply have learned their way around, while those who believe it to be the work of an underground anti-first-year group believe that that group elaborately maps out each trap in advance at the end of Spring and sends it to everyone else on campus such that they can study it over the summer. But that would require almost everyone on campus to be ‘in on it’, to be keeping the secret. Which would be ridiculous. 

Anyway, Max Fisher ‘27, a Student Ambassador involved in the organization of first-year fall day (and a suspected organizer of many of the actual falls) advises students “come to our event! We will have donuts and cider! We will mop the floors of the Great Hall right before to make it squeaky clean! There may even be buttons that will absolutely not be accidentally spilled  all over the floor! Don’t worry about it!” He did not mention any safety precautions or acknowledge the rumors around the organizing office’s involvement, so any first-years thinking of attending this event should proceed at their own risk.