Every year spent after our final trick-or-treat has been left floundering in an sea mediocracy.

For about the first 13 years of our lives, we already knew how we were going to spend our night: Walking the streets in cheap Party City costumes with neon green glow sticks. Knocking on the doors of strangers, begging for candy, hoping to get king size bars of chocolate. 

So what can we do other than risking death by the hands of strangers and their mystery candy? Well, there are plenty of things we as college students can do. You could…

Watch horror movies

Perhaps the most obvious way to spend Halloween and by extension, all of October, is to watch horror movies. As soon as it hits 12 a.m. on Oct. 1, you best believe I was watching some of the horror classics. Although watching scary movies on Halloween can seem like a cliché, it is a lot of fun. For one thing, you’ll be warm. I personally cannot remember a Halloween that was a decent temperature. Secondly, you can watch movies with some bomb snacks. And finally, it’s a relatively cheap option. There are an indefinite number of places to watch some good and not-so-good horror flicks such as streaming services, cable TV and even the movie theater.

Go to Halloween parties

Every decent B-rated Halloween movie takes place at a Halloween party filled with scantily clad, poor-decision-making, inebriated people. This is probably the most popular way for students our age to spend Halloween night. I can’t imagine what exactly could be better than seeing the same people you see around campus constantly, but drunk and in costume. What can I say? The culture of finding any excuse to have a party is alive and well, so enjoy a night of unnecessary partying if you’re into that. But make sure to be safe and only drink if you’re legal. 

Homework

It seems as if most people are determined to ignore the fact that Halloween is taking place on a school night. So instead of being packed inside some fraternity’s sticky basement floor, or staying up late in fear of nightmares from your Saw binge, as a college students, we could be productive and do our homework. After a long night of doing homework and becoming a better informed citizen, you can do your skincare routine, put on a facemask, treat yourself to some tea then go to bed at reasonable hour to wake up for your Thursday class nice and refreshed.

Stay in

Although this seems eerily close to the “do homework” option, fear not, because you could just do nothing. Sometimes it may be hard for some to remember that not everyone celebrates Halloween, which is fine, so you could just treat Oct. 31 like any other uneventful day at UK.

Haunted houses

Also a nice setting for poorly written and equally poorly acted horror movies are haunted houses. They can be a source of a much needed adrenaline rush. It could be a spooky date idea or a competition among your friend group to see who’s going to pee themselves first.

So as you can see, there are a plethora of options for spending Halloween this year and for years to come. And just remember, there’s no wrong way to spend Halloween, unless you spend it eating candy corn.