The Tufts Adventure Club, a new student organization on campus, is now open to all undergraduates wishing to take a break from studying and embark on a spontaneous excursion.
According to the club's Facebook page, created on Oct. 4, proposed adventures must adhere to two rules: They cannot be "boring" and they may not be planned more than 24 hours in advance.
Students Nitesh Gupta and Win Halelamien, who created the Tufts Adventure Club Facebook page, explained that the rules serve to make adventures more spur-of-the-moment and to encourage students to meet new people.
"We really wanted to recreate that orientation experience and just allow people to make friends," Gupta, a freshman, said. "People are in their niche group, and this will let you meet random people you would never think of meeting."
According to Halelamien, a Tufts Confessions post by sophomore Alyssa Bonora sparked the initial idea for the club. Bonora, who made the post on a whim, realized how popular the idea was after numerous students "liked" it on Facebook, she said.
As of today, there are 120 members in the Facebook group.
Halelamien explained that the club has already hosted a few adventures, including an impromptu trip to Harvard Square, which a couple students attended, as well as an unplanned juggling lesson.
Gupta explained that they have several possible ideas for future adventures, including a game of strobe light tag in a basement. Halelamien also suggested having a snowball fight or a spontaneous initiative to make snow forts.
Gupta and Halelamien think of themselves as facilitators of the adventure group, rather than the official leaders of the club, they explained.
"Our job is just to get the ball rolling," Halelamien, a sophomore, said.
Their leadership will be underground, Gupta added, in order to eventually allow the group to grow organically by itself.
"The constitution is above our leadership," he said. "We will have a structure of 'nonstructure.'"
The two hope that in the future, others will begin posting their own spontaneous adventures for other people to join. In the meantime, they will help people come up with ideas and recruit more people to join the Adventure Club.
Gupta said he hopes the new club will allow students to act a little freer.
"Coming to Tufts, I thought since the application questions were so quirky, the campus would be too," Gupta said. "A lot of people are really quirky, but a lot of people are scared to let that side out."
Gupta and Halelamien also had the idea of creating an Adventure Club flag and placing it randomly at tables in Dewick-MacPhie dining hall. Students passing the flag would understand that the table was meant for anyone wanting to meet new people. Gupta and Halelamien would rely on students to pass the flag on to others who could set the flag up somewhere else.
"We want to make our ideas way more exciting, and emphasize that this club is nonexclusive," Gupta said.
