Every year VESTING organizes an introduction weekend for the freshmen, including myself. The general theme of this weekend is getting to know your new fellow students. It is also a perfect opportunity to get a glimpse of the new world as a student. This was done by a variety of fun activities during the weekend. This year the promising weekend started on Friday after we attended the introductory lecture and the FEB welcoming’s Festival.
When we arrived at the location the weekend could really begin. The freshmen were divided over five different groups, each representing a country. The groups did a course of fun little team building games, such as ‘krantenmeppertje’ and Noughts and Crosses in a relay race form. Because of these activities you got to know a lot of fellow students in a short time.
After the course of games, a decent meal, and some beers further, the evening program started. It began with a classic pub quiz to test everybody’s basic/random knowledge. The pub quiz was followed with some fanatic beerpong games until the late hours of the evening.
The next morning started early with gymnastic to wake up for the day to come. Under the guidance of three enthusiastic senior students and some music we had to do some exercises and basic dances. However, for those who drank too much the previous night, this was not the most pleasant experience of the weekend.
A breakfast later, the five groups headed to the day program, which again consisted of multiple games. This time more in the theme of sports. For example, the groups had to Sumo wrestle, play dodgeball on a slippery soapy tarpaulin, volleyball with a beachball and the famous obstacle course which was covered in soap. The obstacle course in particular was attended fanatically, with serious battles between the students.
Succeeding the day program, a large group played flunkyball, this is a drinking game where two groups compete against each other. We played multiple games each getting more competitive than the other. Which lead to three referees putting the games on the right track. These games were played until dinner was served, which was shortly followed with the evening program, karaoke. Here, some great songs were sung with passion. Proceeding further into the evening we came to the sad conclusion that we had drunk all the booze that was available. Nevertheless, it was a memorable night.
Sunday morning, we were saved, there was no morning gymnastic. So we could slowly wake up to head for the notorious auction. During the auction, the highest bids were placed to get someone to take more food home than they could carry. The highlight of the auction was the bid to have Toompje do a ‘dubbele adt’. After the auction we waited for the delayed bus to get back to Groningen.
Back in Groningen, some of us ate at Napoli to end the weekend. While enjoying a nice meal, we discussed the weekend and talked about the study that started the next day. All in all, the weekend was a huge success. During the weekend, the first steps towards new friendships were taken.