By Jillis Jansen
Traditionally the HAC Campus Dinner is the one IntRoWeek event that shows all new students the UCR campus locations: the people who just moved into Bagijnhof get a chance to see what Koestraat is like, or show the students from Bachtensteene how to find Roggeveen and give new students the opportunity to relax a bit after a busy day of exciting events. Usually, students start at Bachtensteene for drinks and snacks, before having tomato soup at Roggeveen, pizza at Bagijnhof, and finishing at Koestraat with some delicious popsicles.
However, as was sadly often the case this IntRoWeek, the weather strongly disagreed with this plan, forcing the dinner to take place in not four locations, but one: Bachtensteene. Luckily, Bachtensteene is a large campus location, with not just plenty of common room space to accommodate 200 kids and their parents, but also a large kitchen where it is possible to prepare large amounts of food.
Needless to say, this complete overhaul of the entire event caused its fair share of issues. While the original plan was that people would get their food from the godparents, who would distribute it at each campus, the godparents now had to bring it to the families spread throughout Bachtensteene. While it looked quite stressful, the distribution went better than expected. Every family eventually received their fair share of food and had their fill. Some children even tried to barter more pizza from the hardworking godparents, who weren’t very receptive to such a request.
Next to all the food that the HAC had provided, there was also dessert and drinks prepared and served by the sororities and fraternity which everyone greatly enjoyed. One has to say that even though the weather did not cooperate, the food was great, the dinner a success and Bachtensteene proved itself as a great campus location. Kudos to the HAC for organising it in such a small time!
Jillis Jansen Class of 2017 is a Linguistics, Psychology and Cognitive Science Major from Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
