Jyväskylä's first engineering students got their teekkari caps
At noon on May Day eve, Jyväskylä's Mattilanniemi beach was buzzing. Dressed in blue and black student overalls, the first engineering students at the University of Jyväskylä gathered on the beach for their rite of dipping (teekkarikaste). Although the weather was chilly and windy, the historic event was witnessed by a large crowd.
After a few lively engineering student songs, the 17 freshmen who had come to get dipped walked in line closer to the shore and took off their shoes. Then they lined up in a single file and walked determinedly, tasselled teekkari caps in hand, into Lake Jyväsjärvi until the water reached their chests. The students made no sound but there were gasps on the shore. Next, the freshmen donned their brand-new teekkari caps and emerged from the water as engineering students – looking as cool as ice, literally.
Minea Nupponen from Vantaa and Juuso Vuorela from Jyväskylä, students involved in planning the dipping, say that they wanted to create original traditions for Jyväskylä's engineering students.
“We wanted to find something that looked like us. It was important that everyone could be dipped together," says Nupponen.
“We wanted to carry out the dipping in a way that we would all become the first engineering students in Jyväskylä at the same time," Vuorela continues.
New traditions in Turku
May Day also saw engineering student history being made on the banks of the Aura River in Turku, where engineering students were dipped into the ice-cold river.
The Turku dipping of engineering students is here to stay, the organisers assured.
The new engineering student tradition surprised many passers-by on the sunny shores of the Aura River on May Day. A towering crane was dipping engineering students into the river, one basketful at a time, accompanied by cheerful screams.
The functionality of the dipping basket, specially built for the new tradition, was tested first by the dipping of engineering students working group and then by the Teekkarikomissio board, who were responsible for organising the event.
“When you are in the water up to your waist, you are tingling all the way to your fingertips. Even the tassel on my cap got a little bit of the Aura River in it," says Niklas Luomala, chairman of the working group, after being dipped into the five-degree river water.
