The Toughest Class To Get Into...And Out Of

Students work together in a popular class inspired by escape rooms

The scene inside Lab 231 of Lassiter Hall was eerie: A student in a white lab coat lay on the floor. He wasn’t moving. He had been exposed to a deadly virus that he and seven other students were experimenting on.

The other students, all in white coats and goggles, gathered around a black box several feet away from the student on the floor. They had 60 minutes to escape the lab, or they’d be at risk too.

But there was a big problem: The doors of the lab were locked, and the key was inside the black box.

The scene wasn’t real. The students were in an escape room, a popular game in which participants work together to solve puzzles so that they can escape the room in a set amount of time.

The particular escape room that the students found themselves in was part of Escape Rooms and Video Documentaries. The class has been one of the most popular among freshmen since Dr. Stefan Wiecki, associate professor of history, began teaching it last year.

Rafik Sadik Gendi, a sophomore from Cairo, Egypt, was one of the students trying to escape the virusinfected lab.

“The escape room was a lot of fun, and it helped me hone leadership skills as Dr. Wiecki chose me as the leader of my group,” Gendi said. “The whole purpose of the class itself was to teach students how to cooperate as a team and to teach us critical thinking and problemsolving skills.”

Studies by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) show that all students need to develop certain competencies while in college, regardless of the major they choose. Employers say that critical thinking and problem-solving, teamwork and collaboration, communication and leadership skills are at the top of the list.

In Escape Rooms and Video Documentaries, students work on these skills by creating an escape room during part of the course. In another part of the course, they attempt to escape from rooms created by their classmates.

Students creating the escape rooms choose the theme of the room, come up with the main problem to be solved and create puzzles for their peers to solve along the way. Of course, students trying to escape the room, like the ones trying to get out of the virus-infected chemistry lab, must work together to solve puzzles.

The escape room course is one of 24 such skill-building first-year exploration courses that are part of COMPASS. Now in its second year, COMPASS is the College’s quality enhancement plan required for accreditation.

“The idea of COMPASS is to get students on their vocational path,” Wiecki said.

Students set out on this path by exploring subjects and careers they’re interested in during first-year exploration courses. In the escape room course and others, students connect self-exploration with academics and vocation.

Dr. Sharon Knight, professor of Spanish and COMPASS director, and Kim Lane, associate dean of students and director for Career & Professional Development, developed the program to help students with their choice of majors and careers and prepare them for life after PC.

“COMPASS initiatives specifically support the first competency that NACE lists: problem solving and critical thinking,” Lane said. “It is also listed in our College’s mission statement and goals that guide our mission.”

So when students take Escape Rooms, they’re not just playing a game with friends.

“The course is always more of a challenge than students think,” Wiecki said. “Initially, students think, ‘Oh, this is just going to be fun.’”

Gendi knew he wanted to major in biology long before he came to PC. While the course didn’t factor into his choice of major, Escape Rooms did help Gendi narrow down what he wants to do after college.

“The ability to analyze a problem, organize a solution, and collaborate with several others in a concerted effort to solve said problem did shed some light on my possibly becoming a surgeon of some sort,” he said.

Wiecki says the escape room course is similar to the puzzle of going to college. He says students have resources, like the library and offices like Career & Professional Development, available to them to help them figure out their own lives.

They also have professors and staff members who are available to help them solve problems along the way, the same way their classmates help them in the escape room.

“In a way, the escape room is like a symbol of life, but it’s also real life too,” Wiecki said. “You have to figure out your own path.”