By Witty San

It has been just over two months since I moved to Sweden to begin my semester abroad, and I’m loving every second of it! One thing I’m especially enjoying is the emphasis on student life here at Jönköping University (JU). It’s super different from Waikato – in the best way.

At the beginning of each JU semester, there’s what they call a “kick-off” week – Sweden’s version of O-week. It’s a ten-day event that’s entirely organized, planned, and run by students, with different activities happening day and night. To name a few: night mission, pub crawl, movie night, and sports day. At the start of kick-off, you buy ‘ovves,’ which are overalls in colours corresponding to your university faculty. You also receive patches to glue onto them, with the goal being to fill your ovves with patches (at least, that’s my goal before I leave!). The ovves have specific rules. Three of the most emphasized are:

1. You can only wash them by swimming in Lake Vättern
2. Patches for kick-off must be placed above your right knee
3. You’re not allowed to wear them until the special ‘ovve ceremony,’ where teams compete against each other in various activities and races. After this, you then wear your ovves everyday for the rest of kick-off week.

Each team also has ‘fadders,’ who are essentially team leaders. For all ten days of kick-off, there are always two sober fadders on each team, who stay out (even if it’s until 4 a.m.) until the last team member lets them know they’re home safe. Kick-off week is really fun and special because the entire school and town get involved – you can get patches not only from the university, but also from different bars and places around town.

After kick-off, I had more free time on my hands, so I joined the Business School magazine, JIBS United. It reminds me a lot of Nexus! Currently, within JIBS United, we’re in the middle of planning a Murder Mystery night for JU and working on our winter issue of the magazine. I love being part of the activities and organizations here – JU really fosters student collaboration and community. There is SO much student life here!