Freshmen party (“fuksiaiset” in Finnish) is a themed tradition where the freshmen are introduced to the school, its collaborators and various student organisations – and of course to their classmates. This year’s theme was “action heroes”.

The event usually includes a playful competition between each freshmen class. The goal of the competition is to gain points from several checkpoints scattered around the city, most often located in bars and pubs. Each checkpoint has usually a specific task to be performed, be it singing, dancing, answering riddles or even forming a human pyramid. The performance, including the group’s entry to the checkpoint, outfits and the overall feel of the group are then rated.

Some of the more unsuccessful freshmen might result into bribing the checkpoint organizers in hopes for a better score – and it usually helps. Naturally it’s in no way necessary nor even encouraged. Or at least it shouldn’t be.

I was with Skuuppi ry, a student organization for Haaga-Helia’s journalism students. These photos are from our checkpoint.

At our checkpoint the mission was to split in to two groups, perform a given news headline without words, most preferably as a pantomime performance, and let the other group guess the headline – and vice versa. It sounds quite difficult, but the freshmen were awesome at their performances. Almost everyone guessed the headline.

Next week I’ll be covering Desucon in Lahti, Finland. Stay tuned!



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