Halloween is a day of horror movies and inadvisable amounts of candy. It’s a day of jack-o’-lanterns and bedsheet ghosts. It’s a time for nighttime adventures, for fun and mischief. But mostly, it’s a time for costumes. People of all ages use Halloween as an opportunity for dressing up, the one day of the year where they can wear whatever they want. They can wear a crazy wig, paint their faces, use prosthetics to make themselves look injured and bloody; they can change their style completely. They can dress as their favorite characters from books, movies, and television shows. They can become celebrities, even if it’s just for a day. 

Halloween is a day of celebration. What better way to celebrate than to have a friendly competition?

The eSTEM Academy held their first Halloween costume competition on the day of the holiday during STEM lunch. The event was originally planned to take place in the STEM quad, but because of the low air quality caused by the recent fire, the competition was held inside the building instead, in the hallway between the counselors’ offices and the Catalyst Cafe. 

I asked Elizabeth Ramos and Harshikasai Kellampalli, juniors and eSTEM Ambassadors, about the event. “We’re doing our Halloween contest for our STEM campus,” said Ramos. “We wanted to do—not a separate one—but one specifically for the kids that are in the STEM building.”

Prizes were given out for different types of costumes, such as “erasers, glow-sticks, [and] some beakers,” said Ramos, “because we’re in STEM.” Kellampalli added that there was also “candy for anyone that dressed up. We put tags on them that say ‘Happy Halloween, from eSTEM Ambassadors.’”

When I asked them if the competition would be an annual event, they confirmed that it would be. “Just to kind of celebrate and promote culture on our campus,” said Ramos.