If you think about it, carving a pumpkin is a rather perverse and brutal tradition. Halloween-ers pick out a piece of fruit, gut out its innards — sometimes toasting and consuming its young — and carve scary faces into the front for illumination and display.

Anyway, it’s a tradition as old as time, it seems. And one that college students shouldn’t avoid this Halloween. No matter how barbarous the act.

So, here’s what you need to know:

Choose the right pumpkin.

Size and shape depends on the design carvers plan to use. But if you visit the pumpkin patch or the grocery store to find the fall fruit, choose the one that seems to call your name. I prefer the odd ball ones — the rejects. They call my name somehow. But if you have a certain design in mind, choose the correlating pumpkin shape.

Pick a design that fits your personality.

Sure, it’s easy to find a template for a scary cat, a witch or a goblin. But make it personal. Carve Wu into your pumpkin. Favorite food corn on the cob? Carve that. Favorite animal a sloth? Carve that. Absolutely stumped? Use the front cover of this paper as a template to get a creepy Wichita scene.

Be resourceful with tools.

Those carving kits from the store are cheap and useful for a small budget. But don’t be afraid to try something else. Use an ice cream scooper for scooping out the innards and seeds. Boning and paring knifes can also be useful for carving. Use your resources, mix it up and you might see better results versus using those cheap carving utensils from a kit.

Don’t give up.

If you’re a perfectionist like me, carving a pumpkin can be a frustrating task. Those tiny little carving tools just don’t get the job done sometimes. Get up, walk around and come back to the pumpkin 10 minutes later. It will clear your head and you’ll return with a fresh, new perspective.

Tweet the Sunflower.

Sorry for the plug, but we want to see your pumpkins, especially if you’ve used the cover for a template. Show those masterpieces off.

Tweet @sunflowernews and use #sunflowercarvers on Twitter and Facebook. Happy carving.