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STUDYING IN SWEDEN

Pea soup and drinking songs: Seven bizarre Swedish academic traditions

The Local guides you through Sweden's ancient universities' top academic traditions all foreign students need to know about. Each university has its own unique traditions, but these are some of the most common ones.

Published: 2 September 2015 07:00 CEST
Updated: 20 August 2024 15:41 CEST
Pea soup and drinking songs: Seven bizarre Swedish academic traditions
Students studying very hard for their exams at Lund University. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

1. You arrive 15 minutes late for all lectures…

Swedes like to be on time. In fact, they are probably some of the most punctual people in the world. So prepare to be stunned by the fact that your fellow Swedish students saunter casually into the lecture hall 15 minutes late every day while you’re waiting in your seat.

This tradition, called an “academic quarter”, dates back to a time when students did not own pocket watches and the ringing of the church bells was the general method of timekeeping. When the bell rang they knew they had 15 minutes to get to the lecture. Obviously today’s tech-savvy Swedes don’t go anywhere without their phone, but the tradition lives on.

2. … or half an hour late for events in the evening

Been invited to a party starting at 6pm? Don’t show up until 6.30pm. In the evening the academic quarter gets extended to a double quarter – to allow students enough time to change into formal evening wear.

Therefore, if the invitation says 8pm, the event in fact starts at 8.30pm. Interestingly the academic quarter was officially abolished by an Uppsala University principal in 1982, but students and lecturers still observe it today.

3. You howl out your exam stress

Have you ever felt so stressed out that you just want to open your window and scream at the top of your lungs? Well, at university campuses in towns such as Uppsala, Stockholm, Linköping and Lund, students do just that when the exam pressure gets too overwhelming.

No one knows exactly how the howl (known as the Flogsta roar in Uppsala or the Delphi scream in Lund after the name of the student residences where it began) was invented, but every night at around 10pm students take to their balconies, roofs and windows to scream out their anxiety.

4. You change your nationality (well, not quite)

The so-called nations (nationer) in the ancient university towns of Uppsala and Lund are the oldest student societies in Sweden, dating back to the 1600s, although each will claim they are older than the other. They are all named after various Swedish provinces and counties.

In the past, students were meant to join the nation named after their own province of birth. Nowadays, they are loosely defined by either political alignment, interests, size or character. Most have their own café and pub and many also provide accommodation for members, alongside organising club nights, formal dinners and musical events.

5. Remember the three Ps: pea soup, pancakes and punsch

While not only a Swedish tradition within academia, this is a rite the universities have taken to heart.

Many student societies organise informal as well as formal dinners every Thursday, serving traditional yellow pea soup with pancakes for dessert. The tradition is said to originate from the time Sweden still subscribed to Catholicism as preparation for Friday fasting – but why give up on something yummy?

The pea soup is usually washed down with popular university beverage punsch (if you’re still able to spell that after a glass of punsch we’re impressed). The sweet drink contains around 25 percent alcohol by volume and 30 percent sugar and is produced from arrack, sugar, neutral spirits, water and various flavourings.

RECIPE: How to make your own Swedish pea soup

6. You’ll be brushing up on your drinking songs

That punsch we mentioned? Your Swedish course mates will not let you have even the most modest of sips without singing at least one five-verse drinking song to accompany it. The same goes for all other beverages. There’s a song to go with wine, a special beer song, one for Swedish aquavit, another for plain tap water and so on.

Over the course of the evening, usually enjoyed at a three-course sit-down meal before a night of ballroom dancing (which these days is really just code for any-kind-of-modern-dancing-while-wearing-ball-gowns), they will all be sung.

The tradition of sit-down dinners is usually known as sittning (in Lund) or gasque (in Uppsala).

7. April 30th is the most important day of the year

Swedes celebrate bonfire parties on Walpurgis night (Valborgsmässoafton) every year. The most exciting action, however, occurs in the nation’s student cities, where revellers take the good weather with a good dose of extreme madness before they hunker down to revise for their summer exams.

For many students, the day begins with a champagne breakfast, which inevitably ends up with more champagne splashed around the rooms of the student nations than in champagne glasses.

In Uppsala, thousands of residents then line up next to the river to watch students take part in a homemade-raft boat race. Then they all gather in the park to see in the warmer weather with loud music, dancing and wild student antics.

If you’re a student, chances are this will be one of the best nights of your life. If you’re not a student, it’s best to stay away. And buy ear plugs.

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STUDYING IN SWEDEN

What to expect in ‘freshers’ or welcome week at a Swedish university

Dressing up, silly competitions, gentle hazing, and, of course, excessive drinking. The welcome week or "freshers' week" at university in Sweden has a lot in common with those in other countries. Here's what to expect.

Published: 19 August 2024 06:47 CEST
What to expect in 'freshers' or welcome week at a Swedish university

In the first week of September in Sweden, you’ll see groups of nollor, or freshers, milling around every university town in Sweden, many of them dressed in overalls, white lab coats, or other costumes.

Lund University and Uppsala University, where the traditions, ancient societies, and outdated terminology rival what you might find in the older Oxford and Cambridge colleges, tend to have more elaborate and tradition-filled weeks, while new universities, like Malmö University, tend to have more stripped down affairs. 

What’s Freshers’ Week called in Sweden? 

Freshers’ Week in Sweden is called nollningen, which literally means “the setting to zero”, and has traditionally involved a process called nollning, where older students haze new students, sometimes in humiliating and quite extreme ways. 

Many universities have officially dropped the term nollningen, due to its association with bullying, calling Freshers’ Week something like Välkomstveckan, or “welcome week”, instead.  

At any rate, the welcoming events are normally nowadays just good-natured fun, with only occasional reports of abuse taking place. There are games and activities designed to break the ice and help new students meet older students, get to know the university, and get to know one another.

At the two oldest universities, Lund and Uppsala, and to a lesser extent at Stockholm University and Gothenburg University, there’s often different terminology used for Freshers’ Week.

At Lund, freshers are often called novischer (from novitie, the Latin word for a college freshman), the welcome week is called Novischveckan, and the group of older students organising the activities is called Novischeriet. 

At Uppsala University, at the law faculty at Stockholm University, and in parts Gothenburg University, meanwhile, the word recce is used, which is short for recentior, which means “a new arrival” in Latin. Göta studentkår, the student union at Gothenburg University, refers to Freshers’ Week as RePe, short for Recentiors Perioden, or “the new arrivals’ period”. 

What happens at Freshers’ Week in Sweden? 

Costumes vary depending on university and faculty. Freshers studying technical subjects, such as engineering,have to wear boilersuits in colours which indicate which course they are studying. Medical students have to wear white coats. Students studying other subjects tend to be given some kind of ad hoc costume, normally with a funny hat or a t-shirt printed with a slogan.   

At most universities events are primarily organised by faculties or by the student unions. For example, Stockholm University has a welcome fair with fika, speed dating, and an introduction to the various sports clubs. 

At Lund and Uppsala though, the events are more often organised by the “Nations”, the student societies that are responsible for much of student social life, and which also offer some accommodation.   

Freshers’ Week activities will normally be organised around a theme, allowing older students to let their imaginations run wild. 

Kalmar Nation in Lund, for instance, is this year setting it in a postapocalyptic world where Lund has been destroyed, setting the scene for a battle between vetenskapsmännen, lovers of science, who want to return the world to what it was, apokalyptikerna, who want to continue the choas, utopisterna, who want an ideal world of peace, and mullvadarna, the moles, who come from the underworld. 

They will also normally include a busy programme of events. At Lund’s Malmö Nation, for example, all new members are assigned a group, which combines freshers with two or three older students, who act as mentors (rather than tormentors as they might have done in the past). Events are then spread out over several weeks.  

They include a novischpub night, with food and quizzes, where freshers are introduced to what the nation is and how to sign up for various responsibilities and other activities. Then there are daytime activities with games and challenges arranged by the nation where the groups compete with one another.

The day is finished up with a fulsittning – a dinner party with fun outfits, simple food, and lots of drinks. After the dinner the Nation’s nightclub is open for all of the freshers. The novisch period ends with a large dinner at the student union, with white linen, silver cutlery, and formal attire.

At the dinner, nation members will be expected to sing snapsvisor (traditional drinking songs) and make and hear speeches and toasts. 

At Uppsala, this formal dinner, called recentiorsgasque, or reccegasque is held at the various nations. 

What about the more formal university business? 

It’s not all about the revelry. New students also have a lot of practical business on their plates in the first few weeks. Arrival Day for new students to come to Lund University this year is August 20th, and to Uppsala University is August 21st and August 22nd.

Stockolm University has its arrival service on August 24th and 25th. Gothenburg University has its arrival service on August 22nd or August 24th. 

On arrival, you will need to formally register, and check into whatever accommodation you have managed to arrange. If you haven’t received details on how to register, you should contact your programme or course coordinator for details. 

You will need a piece of photo id, such as a passport, and if your registration is conditional on completing a bacherlor’s degree or other exam, you may need to bring evidence that you have done this.  

Most universities arrange a busy schedule of orientation seminars, with a general welcoming meeting for all students, an introduction to the library, and seminars on study skills, health and wellbeig and Swedish culture. 

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