As good as it gets

I chose to write about a case of collaboration that has happened recently (namely this weekend) so that I can give a detailed description of it. In my dormitory, we organize the so-called Freshmen’s Weekend (GóJa Hétvége) around the end of October (or in this case the beginning of November). Three days, during which first-year students have to complete (non-humiliating!) tasks such as reciting impossible poems, taking part in a whole-day steeplechase and performing a short play they had been preparing for roughly a month. On top of it all, we have a regular ball on Saturday night with suits and beautiful long gowns.

At 16:30 Friday, the older students gather together to divide tasks and responsibilities among each other. This goes wonderfully because everyone arrives full of ideas and enthusiasm and we already have the skeleton of the whole arrangement. It turns out there would be seven stations, each with a group of three or four “senior” students on different locations (either inside the dormitory’s building or outside) waiting for the freshmen to make them do numerous funny tasks. It is nothing like the brutal, humiliating “rites of passages” of fraternities that you can read about in newspapers. It is all about having fun and making fun of yourself (that includes older students as well who set an example for freshmen) in a completely harmless way.

As everyone was bursting with ideas, there was no fear that any of the stations would be boring. I chose to be a member of the second group which was positioned in the basement pub of the dormitory. We created three tasks to be completed by the freshmen: one of them included the gadget built from Lego that you can see on the picture and the other one featured this classic song. In fact, it is so cheesy that it has become some kind of a national anthem among us. Also, check out the choreography.

Tunak Tunak Tun

The freshmen were also divided into groups of four and five and during the tasks, they had to work together in order to succeed. This serves as a means of getting to know each other and later on forming friendships and being able to help each other. As a side note, it usually works. J The steeplechase usually ends around 1 or 2 am. on the Citadella which is the last station.

I chose to describe this event as an excellent example of collaboration because this is the second time that I take part in it as a senior student (before that I was one of the GóJa-s) and it was a fascinating experience both times. The best part in it is that we manage to work together so well forgetting that otherwise we naturally have our petty quarrels.