A welcome to the 546th year of new University of Copenhagen students

Friday 23 August, 12:59:00.

A digital clock on two large screens on the central Frue Plads square starts counting down for a minute. It is ceremonious, and it attunes the mind to the fact that something special is about to happen.

For a whole hour, a steady stream of young people have been pouring into the square, which has been cordoned off in connection with the matriculation ceremony at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH). This afternoon, the square is reserved for the 2024 cohort, and new students are to meet their university, and each other, for the very first time.

Their tutors are already familiar with the place, they take the lead with banners and T-shirts that show who’s who. Here a sign that says Molecular Biomedicine, here is a sign that says Political Science, here is a funny animal balloon — and on the back of a tutor it just says Cool Winnie-the-Pooh. He is a chemistry tutor. And you realize it, as soon as you see the front of his crew t-shirt.

Most of the course tutors had already gathered their flocks of new students at the different campuses a few hours earlier. So most of them come in groups.

»We connected right away«

The University Post sees six or seven young men near a law programme banner standing in a circle, talking and laughing like old friends. ‘Yes, of course!’ they reply when the University Post introduces itself and asks if they would like to talk.

»We have almost just met, but we quickly got together. People like us connect quickly, because we as second-generation immigrants come from the same background,« says Zakariya Iqbal.

He says that he graduated from Nærum Gymnasium secondary school this summer, and that in his family they have a tradition for »jumping directly from secondary to uni.« His older brother and cousin are both on the law programme already, and they have been speaking very well about it. He was not suffering from school fatigue, so he had no doubts about his choice.

The choice of study has not been quite as easy for Laura Linnemann. She is going to start on the anthropology programme but she has had her doubts. After a gap year, she started on the design programme at the Royal Danish Academy, but dropped out after a year.

»I considered several options, including psychology and philosophy, but I chose anthropology, where you study many heads instead of just focusing on one head,« she says, sending a big smile of glittering tooth gems.

The best thing is the community

The last ten seconds before the clock strikes 13:00, someone takes the initiative to start shouting the countdown – and at zero, the giant doors at the top of the stairs in front of the impressive UCPH ceremonial hall swing open. Out comes Prorector for Education, Kristian C. Lauta, in the local interpretation of business casual, a t-shirt with a UCPH logo.

He throws out his arms and takes in the applause. He says he has been just as nervous as the students. He was afraid that no one would come, he says. However, these fears were unfounded, as Frue Plads is jam-packed. This is even though this year, for the first time, management has divided up the event, so that three faculties (Social Science, Law, and Science) are welcomed at 1 pm, while the show repeats itself at 3 pm for the rest.

The student singers perform a ‘Hellige Flamme’ (holy flame), and the chair of the Student Council, Andrias Nolsøe Jacobsen, holds his welcoming speech and encourages students to get involved in the social life on, and across, the study programmes.

Business ceremonial

Then its rector Henrik C. Wegener’s turn. He is not in casual: What is the opposite? Business ceremonial maybe. He himself says that his chain and mantle set-up is a bit Dumbledore, and it is always appreciated when the University of Copenhagen compares itself to Hogwarts. Even today.

The rector sums up his own speech in three main messages: Create your own university with renewal, community, capacity for change, and understanding of others.

READ ALSO: Rector to new students: »Let the community suffocate the loneliness«

The rector builds up to the historic handshake where students are incorporated as citizens of the university, and promise to comply with its rules. (This even though the university no longer has sanctions like slapping naughty students into the dungeon, despite the fact that the dungeon still exists »right here behind me,« as the prorector quipped in his own welcoming speech.)

The rector and prorector shake hands with the newcomers, and the entire crowd is slowly swallowed up into the main building, where the students are whipped through the Ceremonial Hall so they can be blown away by murals, tapestries and heavy tradition. Then the deans, fully decked out, welcome them in the Lindegården yard behind the hall.

»I was unexpectedly pleased with the event. There is plenty of tradition, and it’s grand. But for me it was a huge plus that the rector put so much emphasis on community in his speech,« concludes Laura Linnemann, before she follows the stream out to the Student Council’s completely casual welcome with music and beer out at North Campus.