Comments on: University initiations

By: Universities and alcohol « Ellee Seymour MCIPR

Universities and alcohol « Ellee Seymour MCIPR — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 11:51:06 +0000

[...] who want to join a university sports team and find themselves virtually forced to participate in humiliating initiation rituals. I also hope those Facebook pics of what these inebriated teams do on their uni sports trips abroad [...]

By: Daryl

Daryl — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:37:03 +0000

I’m a member of a rowing club…i was blindfolded during my initiation…but to be honest it was possibly the most fun i had in a LONG time…now i’m organising this year’s initiation, and i don’t plan to change much. Fresher’s have the option of taking part or not. There is no force. You choose.

By: Ellee Seymour - MCIPR, PRESS CONSULTANT, JOURNALIST, POLITICAL AND PR BLOGGER. » Could you stay silent all day?

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:11:37 +0000

[...] over in Hull, David has passed his initiation ceremony to join the university’s highly regarded football team. They had to wear fancy dress. David [...]

By: mutley

mutley — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:48:09 +0000

sheer adness and cruelty if you ask me

By: MICHAEL MANNING

MICHAEL MANNING — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:08:59 +0000

No, I can’t say I was hazed. I was a summer border at a fraternity house for Engineering students and the cool thing was that they were really into their stereo equipment. It sounds like David has a good head on his shoulders!

By: Ellee

Ellee — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:55:04 +0000

Q9, fortunately, David hasn’t hasn’t had to make any decisions on what you describe. He just loves football, so why make him suffer humiliation because of this?

Sheila, what an awesome initiation – and you survived to achieve great things! Obviously a character building experience for you.

By: Sheila

Sheila — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 11:58:43 +0000

One of the key questions must be when does “a bit of fun” turn into humiliation, and can someone who doesn’t want to drink to excess opt out?

St Andrews, where I took my degree, has a ritual called “Raisin Weekend” which started as an opportunity for “bejants” to bond with their acadmic parents (older students who had taken them under their wing) by having a tea party and giving gifts.

What happens now is that the pound of raisins is given in the form of large quanities of wine, the tea party is an excuse to test the alcohol tolerance of first years, and come the Monday morning, if you’re really unlucky you’ll find yourself freezing to death (Raisin Weekend takes place in October) in a skimpy costume* in Sally’s Quad having shaving foam and less-hygienic substances thrown over you. This was all a good few years ago and it might have been toned down for the health and safety of all concerned these days!

* black plastic bin bag with spots on, roped to 11 other first years. We were a set of dominoes….

My own adacemic children went as the Four Pedestrians of the Apocalypse…

By: Letters From A Tory

Letters From A Tory — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:37:22 +0000

Drinking yourself stupid during university initiations is nowhere near as bad as some of the stuff I heard about my university rugby club, who took depravity to a whole new (low) level.

http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com

By: Quasar9

Quasar9 — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:12:07 +0000

lol Elle,
one does wonder sometimes whether it is worth joining a society or fraternity that requires one to be degraded or submitted to some ritualistic abuse.
I guess the extreme comes with street gangs where one has to stab someone to join the brotherhood or blood.

But one can one say, would I want to join a club bad enough to have to do something I do not find funny, amusing or even acceptable …

sure drink beer till I’m ‘blind’ drunk – been there and done it
go and steal a bobbies helmet – nope, never had the bottle
bunji jump from the top floor of a tower block with nothing but a string of sheets to hold me from certain injury or death – nope. Come on I wasn’t born yesterday
wear a plastic bag over my head – nope. Do I look stupid? Well I certainly would with a plasric bag over my head.
smash a glass in someone’s face? – nope, not my idea of fun. I get my kicks from kicking the head of the twerp who suggests I do something dangerous or violent to someone else.

But hey, that’s just me.
And I gave up group sex a long time ago – the odds are just too high of catching some exotic disease, and the risks of life threatening diseases just too high in today’s environment.

But I guess everyone has to choose whether they want to drive at top speed on the wrong side of the road, or the wrong way up a one way street – or – play chicken with oncoming traffic on the motorway.

By: Winchester whisperer

Winchester whisperer — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:19:08 +0000

Sounds very American