From crafting the perfect Collis smoothie order to claiming a favorite study spot on campus, students are slowly settling into their termly routines. For some, Collis Governing Board Trivia — hosted every Thursday at 9 p.m., either at Collis Common Ground or in One Wheelock — is a weekly fixture in their calendars. Armed with plates of pizza and garlic knots, students gather in groups of up to six to jot down answers, showing off their general knowledge and taking home prizes.
Kevin Farrell ’25, a longtime trivia fan and organizer of Collis Trivia, said the event has been a great way for students to bond, regardless of their age or background.
“I think the big thing about trivia that makes it really special is that this is an event that we do every week,” Farrell said. “You can jump right into trivia … [and] make friends doing it … I’ve made friends with a lot of people who have been regulars here.”
Similarly, Collis Trivia attendee Nina Kieserman ’28 said the weekly events have helped her form a friend group.
“[We] actually came together partly because of trivia, and so now it’s very fun to go and have everybody have their own niche little interest that will help us in trivia or hinder us,” she said. “I think the community around trivia [is my favorite part].”
Max Farrell ’28 — Kevin Farrell’s brother and the second-place finisher in last week’s iteration of Collis Trivia — said he enjoyed the low-stakes aspect of the competition.
“It’s just having fun with friends,” he said. “And if there are silly categories, it’s just a fun thing to do.”
Though question categories can cover nearly any topic, recent Collis Trivia nights have featured Dartmouth-related questions. Farrell said he tweaks the questions depending on the time of year. In the fall, for instance, he includes Dartmouth-related questions to help first-year students learn more about campus.
“At the start of the school year, it’s nice to do Dartmouth-related trivia to welcome in the new class,” he said. “So that’s why we had Dartmouth last week, and ‘Know Your Campus’ this week.”
While the first few weeks of the fall typically feature Dartmouth-themed trivia, other terms have often corresponded to events happening on campus.
“At Winter Carnival [this year], I did all six rounds [as] space-related, with space-related music, astronomy and space travel,” Farrell said.
Even on themed nights, Farrell strives to make trivia accessible for every student, regardless of their interests, to provide a “good mix” of topics.
“Usually I like to do one music round. It’s nice to do a round of pop culture,” Farrell said. “I generally throw in something like geography or history or current events, and then I try to get something a little more science-oriented for the STEM majors in the room.”
Trivia also allows students to find fun in selecting the perfect team name. Kieserman explained that her group uses the name “Frogs and Toads” as a fun template for the team’s name, which changes every trivia night.
“‘Ranas y sapos’ was our most recent one — that’s ‘Frogs and Toads’ in Spanish,” she said. “On the [first trivia night] … one person had a really cool ‘Frogs and Toads’ shirt. We were just talking about the shirt for a while, and then it became time to choose our name. And we were like ‘Frogs and Toads,’ of course.”
Max Farrell said the process of choosing his team’s name was similarly spontaneous — even though they didn’t find the perfect name right away.
“Last week, we made a mistake. We let some guy in the swim team choose it, and he called us ‘The Skibidi Fish,’ which was all-time awful,” he said. “You want to have something that you laugh at once and then immediately don’t worry about for the rest of the night.”
These trivia enthusiasts recommend Collis Trivia for anyone looking for fun — and a little chaos — with a sprinkle of competitiveness. According to Max Farrell, “it’s always better when you get more people doing it, because then it gets even more wild and competitive.”
For Kieserman, more attendees means more fun — but also heightened competition.
“[People shouldn’t come to Collis Trivia] because the less people that there are, the more likely I am to win — I’m kidding,” Kieserman said. “Of course you should go, but at the same time, you should also let us win, please.”
