Sarah Shelton – Features Editor
Arcade games, free food and prizes became student’s Friday night as they shuffled on a bus for Program Council’s, ProCon, trip to Dave & Busters.
“I’m one of the advisers for ProCon,” Assistant Director of Student Involvement & Leadership Development Eric Lacharity said. “This is the second time we’ve done this event. The first time we did it, it went over really well so we were like ‘we gotta do it again.’ It’s a nice opportunity for students to get off campus, play some games, maybe play some games they haven’t seen before, get a nice dinner and relax.”
Dave & Busters is a restaurant and arcade located in Milford Mall. Lacharity said the weekend programmers set up the entire event, including working with Dave & Busters and the bus company.
“I got to sit back and watch it all happen,” Lacharity said. “We trust them [student programmers] with everything. We feel like they have done such a good job with developing as a committee and they work very autonomously.”
Senior weekend programmer Matt Berry, a senior, was one of the programmers who set up this trip.
“We contacted a special events program coordinator at Dave & Busters and told them which location we wanted to go to, what we wanted in our room and how many students we were having so we had enough food and game cards,” Berry said.
28 students attended the trip and ProCon gave one game card to each student with $35 worth of credits on it. They provided a party room for everyone to sit and eat in. The food consisted of cheeseburger sliders, salad with bread, fruit platters, French fries, and mini hotdogs. They also had chocolate-filled churros for dessert.
“My friend told me there was a spot open last minute [someone dropped out hours before],” communications major Spencer Lane, a freshman, said. “She was about to drop out and then she saw a spot open and was like ‘you should come.’ I do believe this shall be a fun night.”
Lane played a bunch of games, including Mario Kart and Family Guy Bowling, but was more interested in food and Sonic the Hedgehog.
“I mainly came because I saw the Sonic the Hedgehog meme that was like ‘alone on a Friday night? You’re pathetic’ and I was like ‘that can’t be me,’” Lane said.
This led Lane to also get a mystery Sonic stuffed animal with the tickets he earned. The stuffed animal came in a box, and there was an option of all the different Sonic characters you could get, but since it was a mystery you were unaware of the prize inside.
“I got the only character out of the box that I didn’t want,” Lane said. “It was 750 tickets, and I got the one I didn’t want. This box was behind another one, I specifically chose this one. If I didn’t believe in my own hubris I could have had Sonic.”
Before arriving, Lane said he was most excited about the food. Biotechnology major Eva Rodriguez, a freshman, agreed.
“I’m looking forward to eating right now, I’m hungry,” Rodriguez said. “I’m also looking forward to going to the mall. I didn’t know it was in the mall.”
Towards the end of the night, some students left to go into the mall, not knowing it was closed and got locked out of Dave & Busters.
“We left the mall, and it’s closed, we can’t get back in,” healthcare studies major Luke Molwitz, a freshman, said. “Hypothetically we can, there’s cardboard in the [outside entrance] door.”
Molwitz and his friends walked from the inside exit/entrance all the way outside the mall to get in from the outside entrance.
“I played a lot of coin games, got gummy bears and was locked out,” Molwitz said. “It was fun.”
