Interesting facts about student life

There are omens and customs everywhere and with everyone. Students are no exception. Many traditions and facts about students may seem very unusual to us. Let’s get acquainted with some of them. Perhaps some of the traditions you may want to implement in your own university, too.

Student traditions

Georgetown University students remove and steal the hands from the main campus clock. And for good reason – they send them by mail to famous people (usually the Pope). The tradition is to send the hands to the person the students would like to see at the university (once they were sent to Barack Obama, but unfortunately the package got lost in transit). The hands are then returned to their home university by the same parcel. Because of the constant deterioration of the clock’s mechanism, the authorities strengthened the tower’s security, but every few years there is a student who manages to uphold an old tradition.

And at Yale, freshmen are forced to ride on the shoulders of their seniors for passing notes. The seniors are happy to give their notes to the freshmen. Those who cheat on their notes are given green paint around their eyes, after which they are forced to roll the author of the notes on their backs for several hours. Actually, when I was studying in University and need to do my term paper, we did practically the same! What a nice time it was! 

Many foreign educational institutions know how to get rid of stress very well. For example, a student may let out a “primal scream”, in which he or she puts all his or her emotions and worries about the approaching exam, right on the university campus. The scream can last up to 10 minutes, and this time is enough to calm down before the important test. And the student will not get anything for disturbing the public order.

It is impossible not to mention an interesting fact about students from the times of the Russian Empire. When students came to the pubs to celebrate the next holiday, the owners asked their address in advance and wrote it down directly on the backs. And after a long party, students who could no longer speak clearly would be sent home by a hired carriage. Nowadays it would be a good idea to do this in clubs and bars…

In Japan, it is a popular tradition to give your friends a Kit-Kat before an exam. We usually take sweets with us for a snack, to calm down and a dose of sugar to help us think better. But the Japanese have a completely different meaning to this tradition. The fact is that the name “Kit-Kat” is consonant with the expression “kitto katsu” – “you will definitely win” (or “you will succeed”).

Curious cases

Those who like to take a nap during the classes will find this interesting fact interesting: the university in Nantes, France, allocated a room where students can take a nap during the classes. In it, they can only sleep or rest without making noise or loud noises.

Many people would love to take their exams at Princeton University in the United States. There, on admission, all students take an oath of honesty. And exam answers are written without faculty supervision. The management counts on the honesty and decency of the students, who will not cheat for the sake of a good grade.

And, of course, it is impossible not to mention the sensational case of the Oxford student who raised notes about the old traditions of the university. He showed up for his exam and demanded a mug of beer from the lecturer. Indeed, under the rules of 1513, a student could get a drink and a meal if he had been at the exam for several hours. Interestingly, over time the tradition was simply forgotten, so it was not removed from the rule book. The next day, however, the university administration picked up all the references and punished the resourceful student after all. The point was that he had violated a rule from 1415, which forbade a student who had come without a sword to take an examination. That’s quite a curiosity, isn’t it?