Frosh Week’s purpose is to integrate students into Queen’s as smoothly as possible, which creates plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong.

Here are some stories from current Queen’s students about their Frosh Week mishaps over the years.

“Queen’s students typically take pride in spending countless hours at the pier working on their tan or de-stressing before they drown in papers and assignments. 

But I didn’t take any pride in my first experience at the pier. 

On the second day of Frosh Week, my floor and I went down to the lake. I was stunned and excited when I saw the number of students enjoying their time at the beautiful waterfront. 

As we walked by the water, a couple girls on my floor started chanting my name to get me to jump in the water. I didn’t have my swim trunks on me, so I backed out. After some more prodding from my floormates, I decided I was motivated enough to jump in. 

I took a few steps back, stuck my chest out and did a flip into the water wearing just my boxers. All I could hear was cheering as I climbed out. 

Feeling confident, I start throwing high fives around—that is, until my buddy yelled at me, ‘Dude, you have a slit in your boxers!’

I looked down, covered my boxers and prayed that I wouldn’t be known as the guy who had a boxer slit during Frosh Week.”

— Jay Kataria, Life Sci ‘21

“After hearing some crazy stories about Queen’s Frosh Week, I decided to go a bit wild since I planned on buckling down with courses and some extracurriculars the following week—I was particularly excited to join Queen’s First Aid. 

So I did the first thing any teenage girl does to rebel against her dad: I got my nipple pierced. 

I thought this nipple piercing would magically transform me into an effortlessly cool, Cara Delevingne-esque girl. In reality, I fainted in the piercing parlor—topless. 

Due to the immense physical pain and nausea that occurred whenever I so much as thought about my piercing, I self-medicated with Aspirin and Gravol. 

I didn’t want my unfortunately-timed pain to slow down my Frosh Week partying, so I also self-medicated with a few tequila shots. 

Fast forward a couple of hours, I was sick from the alcohol, screaming in pain from my new piercing, and exhausted from the effects of the Gravol. My poor roommate was horrified for me, and decided to call Queen’s First Aid. 

Two cute, male upper-year students appeared several minutes later, and I had to awkwardly explain my situation. Understandably, I was far too ashamed to apply to join Queen’s First Aid in fear of being recognized as the frosh with the painful nipple piercing.”

— Anonymous

“After a long day of Engineering Orientation—complete with moshing, spray-painted hair and purple people—all I wanted to do was crash in my residence dorm. However, it seemed someone had other plans for my evening, as I awoke in the middle of the night to a blood-curdling scream. 

I left my room ready to slap someone sideways for waking me up from what would’ve been an otherwise peaceful night’s sleep. I wandered the halls, annoyed but also ready to come to someone’s rescue—despite being 5’1” and having no weapon other than my EngCut. Finding nothing, I went back to sleep, hoping no one had died.

Every other night—still around 2 a.m.—for the rest of the fall semester, I would wake up and hear the exact same scream.

Months later, I found out that a girl across the hall from me screamed to relieve stress. You can imagine how fun living with her during midterm season was.”

— Juliana Brown, Eng ’20

“During Frosh Week of my second year, my friends and I spontaneously decided to bake and consume pot brownies before attending our friends’ housewarming party. I’d never eaten edibles before and didn’t really know what to expect. 

Although I was closely monitored by my more experienced friends, I ultimately ate more pot brownie than advised.  

As the night went on, I developed a crippling fear of stairs and forced my housemate to hold my hand every time I had to go up or down even a single step. Additionally, I thought the ground was moving in whatever direction I told it to—turns out I was just walking. All of this went on as I tried to comfort my friend who thought his body was slowly disappearing. 

Naturally, this series of events didn’t go over well when I tried to explain it to the girl I wanted to impress at the party.”

— Anonymous