COMET CONFESSIONS
On April 26th, 2018, we hosted UTD’s first Comet Confessions, in partnership with the Student Counseling Center! We asked the entire student body to submit anonymous confessions to be used in a final interactive display.
Preparation for this event began weeks in advance. With help from our wonderful members, we decorated submission boxes and placed them throughout campus in several buildings. All students were encouraged to write in confessions, as long as they were appropriate and anonymous. We received cards that were decorated, written in different languages, and that dealt with many different subjects.
The night of Comet Confessions was super exciting! We invited Teena Adler from NAMI Dallas to be our guest speaker, and she gave a really powerful speech about her experiences with mental health and mental illnesses. Afterwards, attendees were free to get food and drinks and to start exploring our stations.
We had many different activities set up, including color pages and various exercises in mindfulness, gratitude, and stress management. There was also an additional table for students to continue to submit confessions. The Student Counseling Center brought many goodies to give away, and also had many counselors present, ready to offer support to any students in need.
The displays consisted of many large boards with confessions pinned on them. They also featured stickers and posters designed by our officers and members. We encouraged both attendees and passerby to read through all the confessions and even write responses on sticky notes. All comments were screened for appropriateness and anonymity.
The event was a great success! The submissions ranged from cheerful confessions of love to complaining about classwork to much more serious struggles. However, no matter the subject matter, we all could find something relatable in the confessions, something that made us feel less alone and showed us that we weren’t the only ones dealing with certain conflicts. It was incredibly heartening to see so many supportive responses added to the displays. We hoped our event helped our student community come together and be there for each other.
We would like to thank the Student Counseling Center for their incredible help, our members and officers for their dedication, and any students who submitted confessions for their bravery and honesty. We are hoping to make Comet Confessions an annual event, and if you have any suggestions on how we can improve things next year, we would love to hear them!