LUSANDA FUTSHANE
Heavier workloads, parties, a bigger allowance, and of course that thrilling sense of freedom – these are the generic things that we are told to expect as university students. However, what you really encounter in your first year goes way beyond what you pick up on television. Every university differs from the next, from the courses offered to the type of nightlife that can be enjoyed. For this reason, the societies developed are unique to each institution and along with each society come a variety of quirks and characteristics that everyone knows about, but which no one has ever named or sought to explain. Perdeby has taken it upon itself to set out for you some of the phenomena you might encounter at the University of Pretoria.
The TuksRes Complex
UP is one of the few universities in the country with a very developed residence culture. Being in res is not just about accommodation. The minute you arrive you are introduced to the longstanding traditions and values of the res. Sadly, what most res students do not realise is that there exists a whole world outside of res life. Day students, unlike res students, don’t have curfews, are allowed to have visitors of the opposite sex in their communes or apartments all through the night, and never have to refer to anyone as “meneer” or “mevrou”. Res students on the other hand, completely taken by the TuksRes Complex, can often be observed turning down trips to the Square, skipping class to go to Ienkmelodienk practice and sprinting across the student centre with a polystyrene hat clutched under one arm.
Second Semester Slump
There’s usually a general positive atmosphere on campus at the beginning of the year. Fresh from close to two months of holiday, most students are actually excited about getting a new academic year under way. That is, of course, until halfway through the year. Blame the first semester examinations, blame the brevity of the June/July recess, you could even blame winter. Whatever the reason may be, there seems to be a universal feeling of despondence at the beginning of second semester. Suddenly that drink at Oom Gert’s becomes more appealing than your accounting lecture. In general, things seem to go into a bit of a rut.
Perhaps the intensity of the first semester burns us all out too quickly, or maybe, just maybe, six months of education is enough for one year. Wishful thinking aside, there really is no way to avoid the Second Semester Slump. It is wise to know when to unslump yourself and get back into those lecture halls because the second semester goes by quickly. Before you know it, you might roll out of your rut too late and straight into exams – and no one wants that.
Engineering Week Hysteria
If you’re not an engineering student, make friends with one quickly because four times a year you’ll have a front-row seat to the best show on campus: Engineering Week. If you are an engineering student, read on to prepare yourself. Engineering Week is a set of semester tests that the engineering faculty organises each semester. There are two in each semester. During each test week engineering students get a free pass from lectures so that they can prepare for tests, which will be written every day. Sounds convenient, right? Consider these facts: each test is worth 35% of your semester mark for that module, some of the tests are scheduled on Saturdays, and very often two are scheduled on the same day.
All of a sudden it makes sense that during any given test week engineering students can be seen dragging their feet around campus, unwashed and in the same clothes they were wearing the day before, yelling expletives at each other. Some people accuse engineering students of being melodramatic, but perhaps that’s understandable. Whether you feel sorry for them or not, you have to admit that it’s pretty hilarious to watch the students who claim to have the hardest degree at the university rocking in the foetal position in the library with drool pooling across their calculus textbooks.
Last Exam Syndrome
When you are studying for exams you get into a groove, develop some sort of momentum. If you’ve planned well, you usually have a plan of action after every exam. Except, of course, the last one. There’s something about knowing that within a couple of days you’ll be free of any exam stress that, instead of spurring you on to study harder, attacks your brain and persuades you to do anything but study. One theory is that your mind is so fixated with the goal (being done with exams) that it can’t be bothered to care about how it’s going to get there. Often, people will study for their last exam while they’re studying for the ones before it to counteract the effect of Last Exam Syndrome.
The great thing is that after you have watched enough episodes of Modern Family and sterilised your entire room, reality kicks in. Eventually, despite the syndrome’s strongest efforts, you realise that if you do not study soon you might actually fail. However, this is usually the day before the exam when you are essentially doomed to get 50%.
Student Night Effect
The law of averages taught us that outcomes will always even out. After a long week of lectures and tests, there has to be something good to cancel it all out. That something comes in the unbridled form of Thursday night, or what you’ll learn to call it in time: student night. The one night that all the clubs and nightlife hotspots agree to make drinks cheap and entrance free. Residence social night. First-fifty-girls-get-free-shots night. Drink-until-she’s-better-looking night. Student night is responsible for a lot of things, but chief among them is the poor Friday morning lecture attendance.
No one can say for sure why student night got placed on a Thursday. Perhaps because if you drink on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, you’ll have plenty of time to recover on Sunday and prepare for your Monday 07:30 lecture. Whatever the reason, no-one’s complaining. Thursday is the highlight of every healthy student’s week.
Illustration: Ezelle van der Heever
