The Honors college held its sixth consecutive Retriever Bowl this year. The Retriever Bowl, a trivia event, sees teams working together to answer a series of questions ranging from pop culture to life science. Ana Petricel, a senior pursuing a dual degree in public health and biology, hosted the event. Petricel welcomed attendees by allowing them to pick their teams and help themselves to pizza.
Freshman political science major Zane Poffenberger stated, “This event provides a great atmosphere of social mingling with different students with different majors.”
Petricel recommended that students should invite their friends to the event in order to ensure a reliable team. However, Poffenberger’s view suggests that meeting brand new students with different concentrations will be beneficial. Because the trivia included questions from life science to computer science, it required the mindset of more than one field of concentration. Students were required to participate without the use of online resources. “There would be no fun in getting the answer from your computers or from your cell phones,” said Petricel.
After a few rounds of trivia, life science was brought back up. Petricel asked, “Which species is more closely related to humans,” with the choices varying from starfish to earthworms. With regard to this question, Poffenberger said, “The trivia is not too difficult, but it is too specific.” Questions regarding specific dates, such as the “week of computer science,” began to surface leaving a handful of attendees drawing a blank.
In between trivia rounds, attendees were welcome to discuss answers, take a break or eat more pizza. The difficulty of the questions increased as attendees progressed. Throughout the event, students were encouraged to learn new things that they were not familiar with, including topics like Karl Marx’s views on sociology and Margaret Hamilton’s inventions in computer science.
Towards the end of the event, attendees had more time to talk to each other, as well as speak with Petricel about prizes. “I would definitely come back to an event like this because it is a great way to learn new things,” said Poffenberger. This event was intensive for students and other attendees. Questions near the end of the trivia event often took about three minutes to answer, and attendees were not allowed to use online resources.
By the end of the event, attendees were allowed to see every answer to the trivia questions. Petricel allowed them to discuss the trivia questions that they had answered incorrectly. Attendees also had an opportunity to explain why they thought their answer was correct.
The Retriever Bowl this year was very active, with many attendees discussing and pondering over what the answer to the trivia must be. The specific content of the event, as well as the questions regarding different majors and subjects, truly left room for many curious students to debate over at their tables. It was a great way for everyone to be competitive and have fun all at once!
