First-year Natalie Jamerson’s Halloween costume is taking over her room. “There’s more cardboard than living space in my double,” she said, before reassuring me, “No injuries yet.”

Her costume? A house.

“From the Pixar movie ‘Up.’ It’s a quirky old house that the main character of the movie attaches: I think it’s 470,000 balloons that he attaches to his house through his chimney,” said Jamerson.

She plans on recreating the house as precisely as possible, balloons and all.

“Ten balloons with 96-inch diameters would be needed to get this house off the ground, so I don’t think that’s gonna happen, but I’m gonna try,” she said. “I have yet to figure out how I’m actually going to be physically inside of it, but that’s my goal.”

Jamerson’s costume is a three-week project; she started working on the house last week and anticipates that it will take until Halloween to finish. For her, it’s all about the craft. Past costumes have included an eggplant and a tornado.

“It’s not a time when you get to hide your identity or let your real identity show or any of that,” she said. “We don’t have enough opportunities to do fun projects anymore. This is a time to express your inner seven year old and make something artistic and crazy and just get out there.”

Jamerson gives advice to others who may want to try a more unique costume this year.

“Don’t worry about what other people think,” she said. “‘Cause everybody’s like, ‘Oh I have to be a slut for Halloween, right?’ But no, I’m being a house.   So deal with it.”

According to the movie “Mean Girls,” “Halloween is the one night out of the year when girls can dress like sluts and no one can say anything about it.” Sophomore Nina Estep noticed this trend while shopping for Halloween costumes at home and online.

“It’s a little weird because for one, it’s October. It’s cold. And then it’s like, so are you dressed as a slut or as a nurse? ‘Cause nurses don’t dress like that,” said Estep.

At Whitman, however, sluttiness seems to be less prevalent.

“For the most part people go goofy rather than slutty,” said junior Katie Barich. “Last year I dressed up as Captain Underpants. This year maybe I’ll be a big sumo wrestler or something.”

Not to say that there aren’t exceptions.

“There’ll always be some of those kinds of people,” said Barich, “but I feel like there’s less here than at other, bigger schools. For example, I lived next to Stanford University and it was just kind of scary at Halloween.”

When asked why people in college continue to dress up, sophomore Ben Gourlay theorized that it was because dressing up goes hand in hand with partying. “There’s a better sense of escapism,” he said. “It’s why people party in general. If you dress how you normally dress, it’s not really a surprise. Dressing up gives it a sense of newness.”

Barich had a similar opinion.

“I think everyone in college dresses up a lot. I see people in costumes every weekend, so I think that Halloween is just an excuse to go extreme,” she said.

I asked Barich to tell me about the best costume she’d seen at Whitman.

“The best costume I’ve ever seen?” she said. “One year, one of the seniors had one of those full body animal costumes, so he showed up to all the parties in this huge squirrel costume. It was just the big head and everything, and it was hilarious, especially because it got really hot, and I think he passed out because it was so hot. So there was just this like dead squirrel lying in a corner of a room. It was pretty cool.”