As temperatures dipped to almost freezing Friday night, many students wrapped themselves in blankets to brave one of the first real fall nights.

Marine ROTC midshipmen, however, camped out Friday and Saturday at the YMCA woods for their annual fall field training exercise.

The purpose was to have the midshipmen prepare themselves for their future in the Marine Corps.

The training, which was the freshmen’s first real look into their future and one of the senior’s last chance to gain some knowledge and apply what he learned from Officer Candidate School, uses real-life simulations for the midshipmen to navigate through.

Some Navy ROTC midshipmen also volunteered as enemies or obstacles during the weekend to help the Marines act out their training exercise.

Midshipmen conducted land navigation and ran small-unit leadership evaluation missions in the woods. They are tested on these missions during Officer Candidate School.

All Marines are required to go through Officer Candidate School and they usually take it after their junior year.

“All this stuff we’re doing here, that’s basically what they do at the first six weeks [of Officer Candidate School],” said midshipman Adam Pollard, senior in interdisciplinary studies.

Pollard, who has been through the school and helped plan the fall field training exercise, talked about the comparison between when he first participated his freshman year and now.

“Like I said, this is the first experience that we get out in the field,” Pollard said. “I remember having a lot of fun with it. Definitely eye-opening for me because you learn so much in class but you don’t really think of doing it, or you do but not actually to the extent when you’re out there.”

Pollard said Marines either have an ‘Oh, this makes sense now’ or an ‘Oh crap, I don’t know what I’m doing,’ feeling.

“I remember my freshman year, the biggest takeaway I got from it all was that I didn’t eat enough food during the day,” Pollard said.

Pollard also recalls not drinking enough water.

“It’s just sort of the thing you get told about, but you just got to learn it the hard way,” Pollard said.

For sophomores and juniors participating in the fall field training exercise, it’s one of their first opportunities to step up and take on some kind of leadership.

“It’s just another way to get them to make sure they know what they are doing and build some confidence,” Pollard said.