Every year, college students across the United States decide to dress up in ridiculous costumes and go out to make poor decisions. I am, of course, speaking of Halloween: the one time of year where young adults everywhere have the socially acceptable opportunity to act like children. However, the way college students and children treat Halloween may has more in common than one would think.

Both young children and college students take costumes to the extreme. They take time finding, planning and creating the most shocking or funny costume they can think of. Children typically wear costumes that are meant to provoke laughter by wearing humorous costumes from television and movies. Children also usually wear costumes that are meant to be a little scary, in order to add a little horror to Halloween.

College students, on the other hand, take almost every single aspect of costumes to the extreme. Many of the costumes themselves are ridiculous, as many are meant to be promiscuous to bring a more adult theme to the holiday. Many students also dress in costumes that apply a mature sense of humor, as many humorous costumes wore by college students can be seen as offensive to others. College students who are going for the more horrific look spend time creating costumes that are terrifying.

Children and college students are also comparable in substance abuse on Halloween, but by different means, of course. Children spend the holiday accumulating large amounts of candy to eat, despite the health consequences that parents remind them about. College students spend time indulging in another form of excessiveness that is also horrible to their health—alcohol.

Even the ways children and college students act are comparable on Halloween. This may seem a little far-fetched, but think about it. Children run around screaming and acting ridiculous, going from house to house collecting candy, only to be taken home by their parents in an extremely tired state. College students are similar. They go around from party to party, collecting their own form of loot, in this case alcoholic beverages and even drugs, and they usually end up screaming and acting younger than they truly are and then usually ending up having to be taken home by their friends and, for those who were a little more extreme than their friends, end the night by crying when they are forced to return home.

College students may act a little childish when everyone’s favorite self-destructive holiday rolls around, but they are just letting out their inner kid.