First Week of College Activities
Choose a first-week college activity that creates a shared memory quickly without asking students to perform a polished introduction.
Start a Jam
- Best for
- first-year seminars and campus programs
- Group size
- 6–12 players
- Time
- 10–25 minutes
Make the whole room part of the drawing
Students meet many groups at once, so another name-and-fact circle often becomes forgettable and exhausting.
SKITJAM changes the usual drawing-game rhythm: the group joins one room from ordinary browsers and contributes to the same timed canvas. Players do not wait for individual turns, and the activity does not depend on one confident artist carrying a team. After drawing, the room invents titles and votes, so observation and comedy matter as much as moving the pencil.
For the first week of college, that structure creates a visible shared problem instead of asking people to manufacture conversation from nothing. The messy result belongs to the room. It becomes something players can point at, explain, defend, rename, and remember together.
A practical way to run it
Run one collaborative prompt about a fictional map of campus or an impossible first-day toolkit. Let the strange visual result carry the memory.
- Create the room. Open SKITJAM, choose whether the host is playing or screen casting, and put the lobby where the group can see it.
- Join without ceremony. Players scan the QR code or enter the short room code, then use a suggested silly name if they want a privacy-friendly identity.
- Draw before overexplaining. Let the first prompt teach the controls. Everyone draws at once while the authoritative countdown stays on the host screen.
- Name and vote. The room submits titles, votes without seeing authors first, and watches the winning mess replay.
One variation worth trying
Invite tables or seating areas to identify one detail they recognize, without revealing which individual drew it.
Variations work best when they change one social constraint at a time. Keep the join flow, drawing controls, and phase order familiar. Change the prompt pack, time pressure, drawing rule, or way the group discusses the reveal—not all four. That gives players enough confidence to take creative risks while preserving the surprise.
Frequently asked questions
Will students remember each other better?
The activity creates a shared reference, but it should complement natural introductions rather than test names.
Is personal disclosure required?
No. Prompts can remain entirely fictional.
How many rounds are enough?
One or two rounds are usually enough in a first-week schedule.
Created and written by Annabella Proctor
Annabella created SKITJAM as a social drawing game where the software gets out of the way and the room becomes the performance. Grayworth handles publication, legal responsibility, privacy operations, and hosting.
About the creator