Australia In Australia, some universities require students to arrive at university a week before classes start in order to gain course approval. This also allows students a chance to orient themselves to student life without the pressure of lectures—hence the term
Orientation week is used to describe this week of induction into university life. In Australian universities, such as the
University of Melbourne,
University of New South Wales and
University of Sydney, the last or second last night is usually celebrated with a large-scale event such as a famous band playing at an entertainment venue on campus. This is generally followed by continued partying and drinking. The
University of Adelaide O-Week runs from Monday to Thursday in the week before lectures begin. During O-Week sporting clubs and societies set up a variety of tented areas where clubs display their activities. The
Adelaide University Union coordinates a variety of events centering around beer, bands and barbecues on the lawns near the Union complex. A major event for the week is the O-Ball (live entertainment and licensed areas) which takes place in the Cloisters (Union House). The O-Ball attracts many thousands of revellers, not all of whom are Adelaide University students. In recent times
Sports and Clubs have sought to distance themselves from the student union and
student association controlled activities and have set themselves up on the Maths lawns. The
Australian National University has a full week (Sunday to Sunday) of events, parties and social activities open to all students of the university, organised by the
Australian National University Students Association. The residential colleges often have their own O-week activities catered primarily for residents as well as the annual Burgmann Toga Party held at
Burgmann College open to students from all residential colleges. Burgmann Toga is the largest party held at a university residence in the Southern Hemisphere. , Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2006
Canada In Canada, there is a large variety of student orientation programming offered by Canadian institutions. Some institutions have their Orientation programming run by the student union, by student groups, by university staff, or a combination. The duration and complexity of programs to support the transition for students as they enter post-secondary institutions can vary quite drastically depending on the institution. Below are some examples of the kind of structure and programming provided by some Canadian universities: •
Ottawa, has two universities within its urban centre; the
University of Ottawa and
Carleton University, both with orientations spanning approximately seven days. At the University of Ottawa, Frosh Week is called 101 week. At Carleton University there are multiple orientations, SPROSH (Sprott Frosh), ENG Frosh, Radical Frosh, and the largest, CUSA/RRRA/SEO Frosh. In the province of
Quebec, because of the
CEGEP system, "froshies" are of legal
drinking age and Frosh activities may include the option to drink alcohol. Moreover, the proximity of the two Ottawa universities also allows them to take advantage of the drinking age in neighbouring
Gatineau, Quebec. • The
University of British Columbia cancels the first day of class for all students, and hosts an orientation day for new students, called Imagine Day. As of 2007, the Faculty of Science also holds an annual, day-long Science Frosh event for approximately 300 first-year students, while the commerce faculty holds a three-day-long frosh weekend before classes begin. • The
University of Toronto has a number of different "Frosh Weeks" organized concurrently by different student groups within the university; including college societies, professional faculties (perhaps the best known being organized by Engineering Society,
Skule (engineering society), in which 'F!ROSH' and 'F!ROSH Leedurs' dye their bodies purple) and the University of Toronto Students' Union. •
Toronto Metropolitan University (the former Ryerson University) also has a number of "Frosh Weeks" organized by different student groups, although it also has a central frosh team known as the 'TMU Orientation Crew'. At the Friday of frosh week, the TMU Students' Union holds a concert that is free for all TMU students; the headliners for the 2015 concert included
Drake and
Future. • McMaster University also organizes many events during what they term "Welcome Week". The week strongly encourages solidarity, first with members of one's own residence or for off-campus students, and later the members of a student's faculty. •
University of Guelph holds hundreds of orientation activities for its incoming students. These events are run by student clubs, academic groups,
the undergraduate student union, along with university staff and faculty. Their main events include Move-In Day programming, large-scale informational events promoting campus safety, and the Pep Rally in which students from each residence perform a dance on the football field. The Guelph Engineering Society also hosts a series of special events for Engineering Frosh including frosh olympics, beach day, and a scavenger hunt. •
Western University hosts the largest orientation program in Canada, involving 1200 student volunteers and an entire week of activities. • St Thomas University, in Fredericton, New Brunswick, hosts a week-long event including activities for each residence and activities for new students. •
Queen's University hosts an optional Frosh week, in which students will bond through various activities, such as chants and numerous traditions such as graduated students returning to watch, as well as consume excessive amounts of alcohol. •
University of Waterloo has a week-long orientation with classes incorporated. Students participate in programs run by each of the six faculties, as well as centralized events with all of the first-year students. The university also runs additional orientations for international students, transfer students, exchange students, out-of-province students and graduate orientation. • The
Royal Military College of Canada has a three week orientation program, called First Year Orientation Program (FYOP) for students who have completed the initial phase of the BMOQ (Basic Military Officer Qualification). During this period, first year students will undergo mentally and physically straining tasks in order to obtain their cap brass and replace the
Canadian Armed Forces issued cap brass. After the three weeks, students will complete the obstacle course around campus in which students will be pushed to the limit to complete it with their flights. After this, First Year students will go on parade to receive their RMC cap brasses, as well as receive their challenge coins with their student numbers. • The
Royal Military College Saint-Jean goes through a similar program to RMCC. Where the core of FYOP is the same, but is reduced down from three weeks to two weeks. The same activities are conducted. Orientation programming is often available for all levels of study; it is generally thought of as something primarily for undergraduate students but many institutions will at least provide some kind of informational Orientation for their graduate level students. International students are likely to also have their own Orientation - in addition to general Orientation - where they are provided with information about life in Canada as an international student.
Denmark At
Roskilde University in Denmark, orientation week (in Danish ) normally lasts from one and a half weeks to two whole weeks. During the period, approximately 14 teams consisting of 10–16 tutors each take care of an individual house to which the new students have been allocated. There is normally one house of Natural Sciences, four of Social Studies and Economics, four houses of Arts and Language and two of technology and design. Each of the first three houses described has an International version as well, where the courses are taught in English instead of Danish. Each
tutor group spends roughly fourteen days (and three to five days of pre-education in the spring semester) living on campus before the arrival of the new students (also called
s). These periods usually involve heavy amounts of drinking, partying and sexual activity among the tutors themselves. However most festive activities including alcohol only occur after 4 p.m. due to the alcohol policies of the university. Because of this policy, most daily activity is spent planning and preparing activities for the new students. When the students arrive all tutor groups welcome the
s with the infamous
– usually a display of wacky sketches such as naked people playing chess, smashing rotten eggs at bystanders or themselves or men chasing midgets with a butcher's knife (to name a few examples). During the two-week period the tutor group teach and introduce the new students to life on campus, both the social and educational aspects. As it is with the preparation period, festive activities take place after 4 p.m., and educational activities are held during the day. The two-week period ends in a four-day period in which the house will leave campus to varied destinations. During these days mostly social activities are held, including the more secret hazing rituals of the university. The tutors uphold a strict set of rules to maintain a safe and pleasant tutorship to prevent harmful and humiliating hazing rituals. Examples are the presence of minimum two sober tutors at each party (in Danish ). Engaging in sexual relations with new students is also strongly discouraged. Also, it is generally not seen as appropriate to force people to drink alcohol through various games and activities. Furthermore, the university dictates that each tutor must be taught basic first aid, as well as a couple of courses in conflict management and basic education psychology. At DTU (Danish Faculty of Technology and Engineering),
Copenhagen Business School and
Copenhagen University, similar periods are held. They however vary, and are significantly shorter than the overall orientation period at Roskilde University.
Finland In Finnish universities, the student organizations for each department independently organize orientation activities for the new students in their respective departments. New students are often assigned in groups to an upperclassman tutor and participate in many activities with their tutoring group. New students may be referred to as ('child'), ('freshman'), or other names according to their major subject. Activities for new students may include "orienteering", pub crawls, sporting events, swimming in fountains or other forms of "baptism",
sitsit parties and saunas, often done wearing homemade fancy-dress costumes. It is also considered important for the new students to participate in the regular activities of the student department organizations.
Indonesia In past years a typical orientation may consist of verbal harassment as well as initiation leading to humiliation. An orientation of freshers in Indonesia is usually called OSPEK () for some universities and MOS () in middle and high school. Orientations in Indonesia have event organizers consisting of seniors and the presidium of universities. The most basic form of orientation in Indonesia consists of an educational board run and introduction to campus cultural behavior. What makes orientation in Indonesia (for some universities and schools) distinctive to other countries would arguably be the freshmens' requirement to wear unusual accessories or hairstyles (i.e. freshmen were asked to wear hats made of bird's nests,
neckties made of folded paper, military hairstyles for male students or intricate braids for females, and the usage of a sack instead of a rucksack). Harsh physical punishments were not uncommon during the
Suharto era, and mass media continues to report inhumane activities during those orientations that led to a few cases of death. Nowadays, however, orientation is more tolerable as physical abuse is now forbidden by law; however, it is still criticized by many psychologists and people as 'too much' because of excessive verbal harassment and the use of unusual and humiliating attributes typically found in orientations in junior high and high schools. As well, it is also criticized by many parents for being economically inconvenient. The reason cited by psychologists is that orientation is often used as a tool of revenge by the board of organizers for what the seniors did to them during their freshman year. Because of this, there are many people who believe that MOS or OSPEK are useless traditions that need to be erased. The cruelty of MOS and OSPEK varies between universities and schools in Indonesia, although in (most) major universities and institutes, that kind of humiliation and harassment no longer exists, or is greatly limited to pending applicants or pledges for certain campus organizations.
New Zealand As in Australia, in New Zealand students have a week to orient themselves to university life before the start of formal classes. This
orientation week is a time for many social events, and is often a reason for alcohol fests. Flat warmings are often held within the time limit to couple the alcohol oriented event with the general party week. In New Zealand's main university towns such as
Dunedin and
Palmerston North (where students make up around one fifth of the population) orientation week leads a wide range of events. Many top overseas and local bands tour the country at this time, and the orientation tour is one of the highlights of the year's music calendar. The
University of Otago in the Scottish-settled city of Dunedin traditionally holds a parody of the
Highland Games called the
Lowland Games, including such esoteric events as porridge wrestling. Student pranks were once common during orientation week, but have fallen out of favour in recent years. Until recent years, many
halls of residence also inducted new residents with "Initiation" (a form of
hazing, though considerably milder than the rituals found among American
college fraternities). Although officially designated as a week, in several New Zealand universities and polytechnics orientation week stretches to over ten days.
Sweden Most Swedish universities have some kind of ('zeroing') or ('kicking-in'). This is most extensive at the technical faculties and at the
student nation communities of
Uppsala and
Lund. Since
student union membership was mandatory in Sweden (until July 2010), the is usually centrally organized from the student union with support from the universities. At the old universities, these traditions have often turned civilized after a dark history of hazing. It is the system for freshmen to bring harmony to their friends and to show their pride through their institute. By seniors, freshmen have to do activities such as singing university songs. Moreover, freshmen are required to do a lot of things, for example, wearing a name tag and showing respect to seniors. These requirements lead seniors to try to make their juniors do what they desire and punish them if they do not follow seniors' orders. Presently, there are adolescents and adults opposing those who had committed unethical or deadly actions to juniors. This group of adolescents has formed an "Anti-SOTUS" group and it has become one of the main issues in Thailand recently. They consider the SOTUS system to be "old-fashioned and a source of brutality". Since it was established, this has become a group of people who share their opinions about the SOTUS system based on their experiences. On the other hand, some seniors who support this system resist the anti-SOTUS attitude. They tend to say that SOTUS makes them get along together and feel proud of themselves by becoming part of their institute. Some seniors, however, coerce their freshmen to attend every activity held by them as part of preparing them to be able to live happily in university. This becomes worse when some freshmen suffer from what their senior has done to them. In Thai society, news related to this system has been reported almost every year, for example, recent news about a male freshman who died in this tradition. This news has resulted in people thinking that should end or, at least, be controlled. In 2016,
GMMTV made a television series based on this system, called
SOTUS: The Series starring
Perawat Sangpotirat and
Prachaya Ruangroj.
United Kingdom and Ireland As well as providing a chance to learn about the university, ''freshers' week'' allows students to become familiar with the representatives of their
Student Union and to get to know the city or town which is home to the university, often through some form of
pub crawl. Live music is also common, as are a number of organized social gatherings especially designed to allow freshers to make new friends and to get to know their course colleagues. Because of the intensity of activities, there are often many new friendships made, especially in group accommodation, some not lasting past Freshers' Week and others lasting for the whole University career and longer. Typically a ''freshers' fair'' for student clubs and societies is included as part of the activities to introduce new students to facilities on offer, typically outside their course of study, such as societies, clubs and sports. The various societies and clubs available within the university have stalls and aim to entice freshers to join. Most campuses take the opportunity to promote safe sex to their students and sometimes offer leaflets on the subject and free
condoms, as well as promoting the Drinksafe campaign. The aim is to lower the rate of sexually transmitted disease and to reduce the level of intoxication commonly witnessed in freshers' week.
Freshers' flu is a predominately British term which describes the increased rates of illness during the first few weeks of university. Although called ''freshers' flu'', it is often not a
flu at all.
United States .
Freshmen is the traditional term for first-year students arriving at school in the United States, but the slang term
frosh is also used. Due to the perceived gender exclusiveness of the term, some institutions including the
University of North Carolina have adopted
first-year student as the preferred nomenclature. Lasting between a few days and a week, the orientation is these students' informal introduction and inauguration to the institution. Typically, the first-year students are led by fellow students from upper years over the course of the week through various events ranging from campus tours, games, competitions, and field trips. At smaller
liberal arts colleges, the faculty may also play a central role in orientation. In many colleges, incoming freshmen are made to perform activities such as singing of songs, engaging in group physical activities, and playing games. These activities are often done to help freshmen make friends at their new establishment, and also to bond with each other and the upperclassmen. Despite the fact that most first-year students are below the legal drinking age (currently 21 years in all states), heavy drinking and
binge drinking may occur outside the orientation curriculum. Some programs require their organizers to sign waivers stating they will not be under the influence of any substances over the course of the week as they are responsible for the well-being of the students. Most programs have one final party on the final night to finish off the week of celebrating, in which the organizers join in. Although it has been officially banned at many schools, hazing is not uncommon during the week. This can be anywhere from the organizers treating the first-year students in a playfully discouraging manner to forcing them to endure rigorous trials. The attitude of the events also depends on the school. Many colleges encourage parents to come to the first day to help new students move into their
dormitory, fill out paper work, and get situated. Some schools view their week as an initiation or rite of passage while others view it as a time to build school spirit and pride. In towns with more than one university, there may be a school rivalry that is reflected in the events throughout the week. At most schools, incoming freshmen arrive at the school for a couple of days during the summer and are put into orientation groups led by an upperclassman trained for the position. Their orientation leader will take them around campus, do activities with them, have discussions with them, help them register for the next semester's classes and make them feel comfortable about coming to school in the fall. Freshmen orientation is usually mandatory for all new students, especially international students, which is one way to activate the status of their visa.
United States transfer student orientation After first-year students have completed some time at their university, they may find that they did not make the right choice, miss being close to home, or simply want to attend a different institution. When this occurs, they may transfer to another university, usually after their first year. Many other students transfer to four-year institutions after completing an
associate degree at a
community college. A smaller number of students transfer as part of a
dual degree program (such as a
3-2 engineering program). Many universities will hold another student orientation similar to freshman orientation for these transfer students. Freshman orientation lasts a few days or a week; on the other hand, transfer student orientation will typically last between one and three days. Transfer orientation's purpose is to acquaint transfer students with their new university. This usually includes campus tours, introducing transfer students to their adviser or perhaps a few of their teachers, and filling out paperwork for proper enrollment. At some colleges, transfer orientation is mandatory for all transfer students. Unlike freshmen, transfer students are already familiar with the independence of college life. Therefore, their orientation focuses mostly on becoming familiar with the layout and policies of their new institution, providing information about essential campus resources, and getting acquainted with other transfer students so they may make friends at their new university. Transfer students may engage in games, conversations with University faculty, and discussions with current students to make acquaintances and learn more about the university. ==See also==