Teekkari (tech student), after almost a year since I heard the three syllabled word, I still don’t know if I can pronounce it correctly (not to be confused with tea curry). I feel proud to be called a teekkari cause it’s the culture that unites us and tradition we all can relate to.
Fuksi, that’s what you’ll be called once you arrive at the university, it does sound vulgar but it is translated as ‘freshman’ or first year student in English. Once you arrive, you’ll be provided with fuksi passport, which will be used to collect fuksi points, and by the end of the school year, if you get enough points you’ll be rewarded with opportunity to be dipped into Tammerkoski rapids on Mayday (Wappu). So, you ride the crane and dive into the river along with other fuksi and come out as a teekkari with the teekkari cap (sailor hat). All thanks to student union and its effort to make the most out of university life.
We have a lot of clubs and guilds at the university, your guild depends upon which faculty you are currently enrolled in. Every guild has their own overalls (or coveralls), the clubs and the guilds will be organizing lots of events and will reward you with fuksi points, if you collect the highest number of fuski points, you’ll be awarded with superfuksi honor and your names will be engraved in hall of fame.
Right next to the university, there’s teekkarisauna, the sauna built for us students, and we have different events happening there almost every week. I would recommend everyone to attend as many events there as possible, cause it’s a nice way to socialize and great opportunity to make friends. Disclaimer! you can’t escape sauna in Finland, it’s everywhere, even business meetings are set up in sauna.
Here are the keywords that might interest you: Rasputin is not the Russian wizard, but it’s the song book with the weird lyrics and spoofed version of the contemporary songs arounds the world, we sing those songs together, especially during “sitsit”. You might wonder, what “sitsit” might be, it’s another party and as the name suggests you sit and sit, cause you are not supposed to stand up during sitsit. We have food and drinks and we have Rasputin song book which we sing merrily.
You’ll have plenty of things to do in and around the university and when the cold night comes, you’ll start loving it and missing it. There’s beautiful lakes surrounding the university, lots of greenery and plenty of sports facilities to fascinate you. It’s been a wonderful experience to be part of TUT and teekkari culture, and if you would like to know more about it, then I would recommend you to check out TTYY (student union’s) website @ https://ttyy.fi/en/me-ollaan-teekkareita/teekkarikulttuuri/. Hyvää matkaa!