Fuck student societies

[Tjis]

So the new semester is about to start and we have a bunch of new students. At this university it's quite normal to join a student society. Why people do this is beyond me though.

Last week was when the student societies had their membership drives. This week is when they start drilling and humiliating their new victims. For example earlier this week I saw two people in nazi-style military uniform shouting at new students. I wonder what kind of sick twisted mind is required to do something like that.

When I started as a student here 3 years ago, I experienced the membership drive too. Generally, the worst, most hierarchical student societies are the ones that throw the best parties during this time. Despite the news messages about people being forced to drink themselves into a hospital (which happens pretty much each year) people still join because of the good time they had during their introduction week. Another reason people join (this actually was the case for one of the people I was with during my introduction week) is because their entire family was a member.

Cause especially with the most hierarchical societies, this is where the connections of the ruling class are built. Many people that become career politicians, CEO, judges, lawyers, etc were a member of one of these societies.

These people live on sadism. First years are treated like scum. They're forced to pay the beer money of higher year members, they have to go all he way downstairs if they cross a higher year member on the way up the stairs, in some societies they aren't even allowed to talk to people in higher years during their first year.

Stupid fuckers. I hope their buildings catch fire with them inside. I wish more people would see through the mask they wear during the introduction week and see them for what they really are: sadist scum that deserves to be shot.

[F9]

:ohmy::confused: Where the fuck are all of this..?I cant even believe it tbh...wtf?

[Pirate Utopian]

qdFLPn30dvQ

[Tjis]

:ohmy::confused: Where the fuck are all of this..?I cant even believe it tbh...wtf?
These kind of student societies are quite common at older universities here in the Netherlands. Not every student society is like this, but the most popular ones are, and nearly all student societies have the hierarchical system and the humiliation of first year students.

[gorillafuck]

Student society = fraternity?

[Tjis]

Student society = fraternity?
It's not exactly the same thing but close enough.

[Nwoye]

Stupid fuckers. I hope their buildings catch fire with them inside. I wish more people would see through the mask they wear during the introduction week and see them for what they really are: sadist scum that deserves to be shot.
wtf man

[Wanted Man]

Which university, comrade?

Here in Groningen, we also have a traditional university with two major fraternities (not the most accurate name, but it gets the point across), Vindicat and Albertus Magnus. Just about every year, you hear stories about the excesses during their "intro period" (hazing). Vindicat is the biggest in the whole city, with 2.3k members before this year. So many people applied this year, that they couldn't even take all of them to the intro camp. I don't get it.

During the intro week (of the city itself, which is completely innocent and really good fun), we went to their place for a while, because they offered 3 free beers per person. I don't get how people can enjoy themselves there, the whole place reeks of stale beer and piss, the floor is all sticky. Yuck. And yet, as you say, people probably do join for the parties and the status. Just the possibility of overlooking all the common plebs on the market square from the balcony (which you don't actually have to be a member for!). And of course, the smart people build connections there, get a room (student housing can be hard to come by), and perhaps shift the good functions to each other later in life.

The funny thing is that our group's leaders fucking hated it too, and adviced against joining them, which I thought was pretty cool. One person did go and join, though. He was a bit of an arrogant rich kid, from the western part of the country, so he'd fit right in. Except that he couldn't hold his liquor at all, he already started talking shit after 2 beers. :lol:

Anyway, I don't know what it's like in your city, but at least over here, there are also other student societies which don't have hazing or anything like that, but simply organise good parties, give the opportunity to socialise for people from outside of the city, etc. And some cities have student unions, some of which are liberal and reformist, but in some cities they're pretty militant.

EDIT: oh, and the brilliant thing about the hazing rituals is pretty simple: once you take the step to join, you have to pay money and go through the hazing. At the end of it, it seems people reassure themselves that it was all really worth it, because now they're part of the cool gang (even if they're still at the bottom rung...). People don't want to admit to themselves that they spent money and a week of crawling through the mud and tying other people's shoelaces for nothing. So they soon adopt the mindset of the organisation, and in a few years, they can do the same thing to the "feuten" (the insulting term they use for freshmen, although some societies have been known to simply refer to girls as "*****es" or "whores"...).

[Tjis]

Which university, comrade?
I study in Delft. we also have two major fraternities (Corps en Virgiel, the latter is the catholic split from the first). Besides those two we have lots of smaller split-offs and also a few strictly religious ones.
Not every student society is as bad as Corps en Virgiel but nearly all of them (actually I can only think of two that do not have this) have hierarchical structures where older members are more important and have a hazing period.
Besides, it's elitarian in the first place to have a student-only organization that isn't actually related to studying.


The funny thing is that our group's leaders fucking hated it too, and adviced against joining them, which I thought was pretty cool. One person did go and join, though. He was a bit of an arrogant rich kid, from the western part of the country, so he'd fit right in. Except that he couldn't hold his liquor at all, he already started talking shit after 2 beers. :lol:
His liquor holding is not representative for the rest of us :p. Also we aren't all arrogant pricks here.


EDIT: oh, and the brilliant thing about the hazing rituals is pretty simple: once you take the step to join, you have to pay money and go through the hazing. At the end of it, it seems people reassure themselves that it was all really worth it, because now they're part of the cool gang (even if they're still at the bottom rung...). People don't want to admit to themselves that they spent money and a week of crawling through the mud and tying other people's shoelaces for nothing. So they soon adopt the mindset of the organisation, and in a few years, they can do the same thing to the "feuten" (the insulting term they use for freshmen, although some societies have been known to simply refer to girls as "*****es" or "whores"...).
This is very true. Also it's partly natural selection. A large amount of people tend to drop out of their student society during and after the hazing period. What stays in the organization are sadists who can't wait to inflict these actions on others in the future, and elitarians who are in it for the connections and to give them a feeling of superiority over other students.

[Wanted Man]

Delft, eh? Aren't like 60% of the students there male? :lol:


His liquor holding is not representative for the rest of us :p. Also we aren't all arrogant pricks here.
Yes it is, and yes you are! *goes off on an angry rant about arrogant westerners, fucking Hollanders, blah blah blah* :p


This is very true. Also it's partly natural selection. A large amount of people tend to drop out of their student society during and after the hazing period. What stays in the organization are sadists who can't wait to inflict these actions on others in the future, and elitarians who are in it for the connections and to give them a feeling of superiority over other students.
Oh yeah, of course it's possible to quit and go home at any time. But of course, people who do that don't have to count on any sympathy, they're quitters and wimps, and they're never going to get their part of the pie. Or at least, that's the principle at work, I suppose. :rolleyes: So it is a form of natural selection, and the ones who stay are already convinced that whatever they suffered is right and just, and it is also right and just that they get to do it to other kids next year.

To you or me, it may be incomprehensible that kids even decide to join, considering that it's completely their own choice, and the things that go on are well-publicised. But the fact is that a lot of 17- or 18-year-old kids who go off to study in a strange city will be somewhat impressionable. In every group of first year students, you will always find a few who are firmly convinced that "you need to get to know as many people as possible, and build connections". So everything they know about what goes on, and the response that anyone with any kind of moral compass would have (disgust) is relegated to the memory hole.

Especially the elitist and hierarchical student organisations know how to exploit these feelings. During our intro week, Vindicat (who overlook one of the busiest squares of the city) had a huge banner advertising the best parties, the most well-known DJs, basically joining them was supposed to be the way to enjoy student life in the city. That kind of thing always works well on the naive.

Anyway, on a lighter note:

WhAowRgxYxo

:D

[Tjis]

Delft, eh? Aren't like 60% of the students there male? :lol:
That's still a conservative estimate :lol:. With most studies it's closer to 90% or even worse.



Anyway, on a lighter note:
WhAowRgxYxo
:D
Hahaha :lol:.

[NecroCommie]

What is wrong with your student societies!? Over here they are little more but trade unions for student rights. That is if I understood the word correctly...

[Tjis]

What is wrong with your student societies!? Over here they are little more but trade unions for student rights. That is if I understood the word correctly...
Over here student societies are a social thing, they have nothing to do with student unions (which we also have). The best thing to compare it with is american fraternities.

[Jazzratt]

From what my mates in uni tell me the student societies here are pretty much light-hearted gatherings of people with similar interests. I've not really heard of the fraternity phenomenon being that big over here, perhaps in the really fucking toffy places that train up the ruling class and their scions but I've no idea about them - best ask bobkindles :lol:

[Black Sheep]

In greece, student societies are either political ones (branches of political parties or autonomous students organizations) which take part in electing the department's president and the doyen (wtf is that word right? meaning the head of the university committee)

or they are interest - oriented, i.e. photography, cinema, sports, etc.

[Colonello Buendia]

Yes it is, and yes you are! *goes off on an angry rant about arrogant westerners, fucking Hollanders, blah blah blah* :p



:D

this is similar to what southern italians get off of northerners, the north is full of arrogant and wealthy Polentoni (they eat tonnes of polenta) and all the economic infrastructure. The southerners are refered to as terroni or literally mud people because we're supposedly all backward peasants. (I'm a southerner but have no animosity to the north)

[Colonello Buendia]

From what my mates in uni tell me the student societies here are pretty much light-hearted gatherings of people with similar interests. I've not really heard of the fraternity phenomenon being that big over here, perhaps in the really fucking toffy places that train up the ruling class and their scions but I've no idea about them - best ask bobkindles :lol:


I've heard the same thing, I'm looking at unis for next year so I've been worried sick about Frat groups, but it turns out that the only real nasty initiations are in Oxbridge, an environment which an individual like my self would flourish (I speak in a delightfully pompous middle class victorian intellectual manner) though I'm hideously under qualified for oxbridge

[Wanted Man]

this is similar to what southern italians get off of northerners, the north is full of arrogant and wealthy Polentoni (they eat tonnes of polenta) and all the economic infrastructure. The southerners are refered to as terroni or literally mud people because we're supposedly all backward peasants. (I'm a southerner but have no animosity to the north)

Stereotypes are fun! In the Netherlands, you get 4 variations:

-Westerners are arrogant jerks, but all the big cities are filled with, *gasp* criminal immigrants!!111! *insert horror stories about "islamisation"*
-Both northerners and easterners are backwards country bumpkins. When they are portrayed on TV, they somehow all have the same accent. :confused:
-Southerners are catholics who "know how to enjoy life" (they drink too much).

Petty-bourgeois provincialism ftw. :)

[Pirate Utopian]

Apart from the bit about westerners it's pretty much fact. I'm too fantastic to be an arrogant jerk.

[Sarah Palin]

this is similar to what southern italians get off of northerners, the north is full of arrogant and wealthy Polentoni (they eat tonnes of polenta) and all the economic infrastructure. The southerners are refered to as terroni or literally mud people because we're supposedly all backward peasants. (I'm a southerner but have no animosity to the north)

A huge group of my family came from Northern Italy, and they were very poor dairy farmers. I laugh at your stereotype! Even though I love me some polenta.

[Raúl Duke]

A huge group of my family came from Northern Italy, and they were very poor dairy farmers. I laugh at your stereotype! Even though I love me some polenta.

This italian stereotype previously mentioned is a bit more modern then the italian immigration wave to the U.S. It could probably date back to pre-WWII interwar years (i.e. there was a movement that wanted the Venetian region to separate from Italy; if I remember correctly) but it's most noticeable form began, after WWII, with the formation of the parties that later made up Lega Nord.

Now about polenta...in Puerto Rico I might have tried something like it (perhaps) and all I know is that I agree with the Southern Italians on that issue (but who knows...maybe this italian corn meal taste better then any other cornmeal).

However "fried "polenta" (the wiki-pedia article called it "fast-food" polenta) is probably a common food (sorrulitos) in Puerto Rico which I like.

[politics student]

These kind of student societies are quite common at older universities here in the Netherlands. Not every student society is like this, but the most popular ones are, and nearly all student societies have the hierarchical system and the humiliation of first year students.

Yeah in the UK these kinds of situations are in the top universities, as they are the oldest and have a lot of people from private education.....

Personally I go to a modern UK Uni, student societies are well a joke. We have a SWP society which has managed to split to form a new socialist society. Dunno how this has happened. Last meeting I saw only had 12 people turn up:laugh::confused::laugh:. Gave up on societies early in Uni. O well might join the chess society and see what comes out of these SWP split.