After nearly a year of growing anticipation and excitement, the students of San Diego State University once again began to prepare for Halloween in Isla Vista.

“It’s such a heartwarming tradition,” said SDSU fourth year Karen Rozansky. “Around the middle of October, everybody starts looking for costumes, buying candy, and deciding who the designated driver will be for the pregaming carpool on the way to Santa Barbara. It’s always been an incredible experience.”

The tradition of traveling to Isla Vista began approximately 400 years ago, when Spanish missionaries in San Diego would travel to the region once a year to rape and pillage the Chumash settlement that existed there at the time.  SDSU Historian Donald Sterling published an article entitled “Rage in the Colonial Age: A History of the Spanish Raids in Southern California” in 1977, which inspired SDSU students to revive the tradition as part educational exercise and part excuse to get crazy drunk someplace where they wouldn’t get expelled for doing so. However, some students have refuted the latter aspect as reductive of their cultural persona.

“For many students, it’s not just another way to party on Halloween,” said SDSU third year Mike Plextor as he loaded the trunk of his car with Everclear and cocaine. “Getting really drunk and trashing some other school’s town is a huge part of our cultural identity here at San Diego State, and I think most people just want to know what that feels like.”

The students are not the only SDSU community members to make preparations for IV Halloween, however.  University President Jeffrey Irwin issued a statement encouraging all SDSU students to take extreme caution while drowning themselves in alcohol and ravaging the town.

“Though I understand the desire to get totally fucked up and destroy the homes of UCSB students, I must warn my young Aztecs to be mindful of the consequences that such revelry can have,” read Irwin’s letter. “Students should be as careful as possible when making complete asses of themselves in front of their higher ranked peers and entrapping the UCSB students with as many arrests and citations as they can.“

“And don’t forget to use the buddy system,” added Irwin.

Over the past few weeks, the institution that trails UCSB by 122 places in national university rankings has set up various educational programs to encourage the safe destruction of Isla Vista at the hands of its students. SDSU officials have even gone so far as cooperating with the Isla Vista Foot Patrol for the event, which they have reportedly been doing for years due to the high number of Foot Patrol officers who are also SDSU alumni.

“We all came up to IV when we were in college, so we know how dangerous it can be to drive up here, break into people’s cars and assault scantily clad women if you’re not careful,” said Officer Alexander Scott of the IV Foot Patrol. “We’re dedicated to the protection and well-being of the students of our alma mater.”

“Hell, that’s why we love doing it so much. It’s for the kids.”