Amidst cold wind and rain, first year engineering students completed the Grease Pole in an unorthodox way.
During the traditional Engineering Society (EngSoc) orientation event, which was first recorded in 1956, first-year engineering students, in a pit of mud, attempt to retrieve a tam resting atop a grease-covered pole.
On Sept. 8, students boarded a bus to an off-campus site owned by EngSoc to complete the climb. At the event, upper year engineering students can assist, but first year students complete the majority of the climb.
As opposed to climbing, first-year engineering students tipped the pole, retrieving the tam after two hours and two minutes, beating last years’ time of two hours and 28 minutes, EngSoc President Jack Walker said in an interview with The Journal.
READ MORE: Sci ’27 show heart and soul at Grease Pole
While some view tipping the pole as a defeat, Walker doesn’t view it as any sort of failure.
“There’s this weird misconception that it’s a failed climb if the pole is tipped and that’s not what it is at all. The point of the event is building community, spirit, and pride in one’s program and in my view, it’s much more effective to tip the pole and say ‘you guys thought outside the box and came up with an alternate solution’ than it is to just keep throwing people up to climb when it’s not safe, or we don’t have enough people, or it’s too cold,” Walker said.
This isn’t the first time the pole has been tipped, Walker added, citing the 2022 climb.
Aside from muddy engineering students, emergency services were present at the Grease Pole event. Although there are always minor injuries such as knee scrapes and twisted ankles, Walker explained EngSoc hasn’t had any injury occur “in quite some time” requiring emergency services to get involved.
In addition to the Grease Pole, EngSoc hosted a new event called Can Quest on Sept. 7, where first-year students and their orientation leaders went door to door collecting canned food donations from residents.
“It was hugely successful. We filled up an entire van and I think started on the second one. I believe the final count for donations came in just over 1,700 pounds of food and other goods,” Walker said.
He views the event and EngSoc orientation as a success. With a first-year class size of roughly 1,050 students, EngSoc orientation saw an enrollment of just over 900 students, a record-breaking year for them.
Corrections
A previous version of this story stated Walker said students found it difficult to reach the top of the pole. The article has been updated to accurately reflect Walker’s comments.
Incorrect information appeared in the Sept. 13 issue of The Queen’s Journal.
The Journal regrets the error
Tags
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be ed, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to [email protected].