Winter Welcome Week Activities, featuring the CSUs Snowlympics

Minnesota State University, Mankato’s Residential Life welcomes back its students with a variety of activities that run through Tuesday for its annual Winter Wonder Week. From A Night at the Sports Dome to Maverick Skate Night at Blakeslee Stadium, Residential Life has coordinated an event for everyone to enjoy. 

The headline event running throughout all of Winter Welcome Week is the virtual scavenger hunt, the SNOlympics. This event, orchestrated through the GooseChase app, encourages students to visit and engage with different offices and services around campus through various challenges the hunters must complete.

This event, which started this past Monday, ends 4 p.m. today. Students can complete different challenges all over campus, such as taking pictures with different campus landmarks or getting a secret password from the worker at the front desk of different campus offices. Each challenge is awarded a different amount of points to go toward the prizes. Winners will be announced at Hybrid Bingo tonight.

Other challenge locations include the Student Events Team office, Student Health Services, MAVPASS and more. Prizes include items such as a $100 Kwik Trip gift card and $45 in gift cards from Walmart, Target, and Barnes and Noble. To play, students only need to download the free GooseChase app, enter the game code of “91K947” and start completing challenges.

The rest of Winter Welcome Wonder Week features various opportunities for students to explore campus. A Great Time for Change is a grab-and-go activity in the Women’s Center on Thursday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. where students can decorate a piggy bank and learn about qualifications for state and federal financial resources.

MSU junior Caitlyn Loya has already scoped out which events she’d like to participate in. “The Women’s Center activity looks really cool! I’m going with a couple of friends,” Loya commented.

On Friday night, there will be a Trivia Night taking place in Julia Sears Residence Hall where winning teams get free appetizers from the Julia Sears Grill. Junior Zoe Macklanburg plans on participating in this event and said, “If I win, I really want to get the mozzarella sticks.”

Information on Winter Welcome Week activities can be found on blue posters all throughout residence halls.