The UCI International Center hosted a costume night for UCI students called Halloween Mystery Night on Oct. 28. All attendees had their fun completing the many different puzzle activities available and enjoying the snacks offered.
Halloween Mystery Night is part of an event series called “Life in the U.S.,” which is hosted and planned by the UCI International Center. The series welcomes international students into American culture and gives them an opportunity to experience it first hand.
“This is part of a ‘Life in the U.S. event,’ where we’re welcoming students from different countries to different pockets of American culture, American life, for our international population,” UCI International Center Student Development Coordinator Jane Son told New University. “It is dedicated to students, and they could enjoy Halloween on campus without having to drive all the way to Knott’s Scary Farm, where we do a different event.”
Halloween Mystery Night had a Jumanji theme with a touch of Halloween added to the scenery. The main theme of the event worked around an escape room activity, where participants needed to complete different levels of puzzles before escaping the “haunted jungle.” Participants began their journey at the front desk with a game board and treasure chest to track their progress.
Participants advanced through different stations, completing fun tasks and challenges in order to get a stamp and progress through the activity. Once the participants completed all challenges and escaped the jungle, the event hosts awarded them with a final stamp and a key to their treasure box containing a sweet surprise.
One of the most unique challenges in this event was the “Mystery Box Challenge,” where participants had to reach into a dark box and find either a gold coin or a map piece to receive their stamp. Another notable challenge from this event was called the “Temple of Doom,” where participants had to split into teams of two to three players and walk across a numbered maze while avoiding stepping on landmines.
Eric Yang, International Peer Group (IPG) program coordinator, commented on the process of planning this event and how the idea came to fruition.
“Honestly, the planning starts the moment we finish last year’s event. We check our feedback from our events and surveys to see what worked really well, what we could improve, and we check in with our student staff from last year, who helped us plan the event. It’s mostly student led, you know, obviously with the professional staff supporting them,” Yang told New University.
According to Yang, the idea for this event was first brought up by a former field study intern who suggested the idea of an escape room-themed event.
“It’s more of a board game where you sort of go into the middle. She also had laid that out as well,” Yang said. “Obviously, we couldn’t use every single [one] of her ideas, but we took that spirit of it, and we were able to task our current staff.”
One of the main parts of Halloween Mystery Night was costumes. From cowboy outfits to horror movie-inspired costumes, attendees wore a wide variety of Halloween costume genres.
The event provided photobooths with a professional photography set up as well as a wide variety of snacks, drinks and music to listen to. Besides the “Life in the U.S.” series, the International Center hosts many other events throughout the quarter.
“We have a recurring event called International Coffee Hour that happens every single Friday from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in front of the Science Library. We provide three coffee, tea, snacks every single Friday, and then what sets it apart from different events is not only the consistency, but also that we provide themed activities,” Son said. “Sometimes we celebrate different cultures, especially ones that are less explored.”
The UCI International Center held an exciting event for international and domestic students in collaboration with student organizers, providing a solid introduction to different traditions that are celebrated in the U.S. each year.
Students can find future events held by the International Center on the upcoming events page on ZotSpot.
Konstantin Diatlov is a Features Intern for the fall 2025 quarter. He can be reached at kdiatlov@uci.edu.
Edited by Alyssa Villagonzalo and Mia Noergaard