A First-Year Murder Mystery

For my final posting, I chose to attend a Rutgers Geek Week Program!  Although not a program specifically geared to first years, the Murder Mystery Party was a great experience for the first years, transfer, and new grad students in attendance!  It gave them a chance to interact with other students they’d never met and have a lot of fun in the process.

The Scene: It’s 1899 in Victorian London.  George Sweet, the 5^th Earl of Coddingham is hosting a party to “mend some fences” before leaving the country.  You see, George was not a very nice man in his life and he mistreated a lot of people.  This party was supposed to help repay some debts and make a few apologies to people, some, you might argue, who would want to see him dead...

The victim (just look at that ACTING!)

That’s me!  Upon arrival everyone at the party was given parts to play.  We began with pleasantries, acting out our various roles until disaster struck.  George Sweet has been poisoned!  Now the goal is to investigate his death, collecting various pieces of evidence from each other and attempting to put it all together to find out “who dunnit.”  The great plot twist was that after my character died, I RAN to the bathroom, changed clothes, shaved my face, and came back out as George’s son, William Sweet!  Hilarity ensued.

A forged marriage certificate attempting to legitimize George's secret first son!

I think the best part of this program was the fact that most people didn’t know each other, yet they were given roles to play, which gave them a chance to interact without the typical social anxieties.  In a way, have “walls” up as their characters actually helped them open up to each other.  I watched one first year really getting into his character and having fervent arguments with some other characters, all trying to get to the bottom of this mystery.  It was nice to see the mix of graduate and undergraduate students working together and having such a good time.

Our gallant "inspector," delivering some crucial evidence.

I think this kind of event could be a HUGE asset to summer orientation, if only we had enough time.  Even if there was a Murder Mystery option at Social on the first night, I think the first years could have a lot of fun with it!  Like a giant game of Clue!  There seems to be a lot of pressure, especially during Social, to break the ice and make new friends.  I think an activity like this could help people reach out of their comfort zones because they’d get to pretend to be someone else for a little while, with some genuine face to face interaction.

Oops, I almost forgot to mention the best part!  George Sweet was visciously murdered by none other than... his current wife, Lady Coddingham!  Let’s just say, she did it for the money.