Shortly after arriving in Oslo I started noticing a lot of teenagers in rather peculiar trousers — boilersuit-style, covered in patches and drawings.
After asking around I discovered that final-year students were in the middle of their graduation celebrations, and these outfits are part of the whole thing.
It all started in the 1990s. Back then students wore these work-style outfits to class, and at the end of the school year — since they wouldn't need them again — they started personalising them with graffiti and wearing them out for the end-of-year celebrations.
The custom stuck and evolved into a four-week party that wraps up on Norway's biggest day, the national holiday on 17 May.
The most striking detail is that students still go to class throughout this entire period. And the most alarming: the final exams begin the moment the celebrations end. It's a genuine trial by fire to see if they're ready for university life.
Only lucky students at some private schools escape this fate — their exams happen before the celebrations kick off, so while they still go to class during the four weeks, they're not actually doing much and their grades aren't on the line.
During the month of festivities you'll see both trousers and full boilersuits, though most people opt for just the trousers for comfort. The decorations and patches are personal to each student, but the colour of the outfit does carry meaning:
– Red for students of maths, technology or sciences. – Blue for economics or social sciences. – Black for something like vocational training — electricians, builders, communications workers. In Oslo they tend to wear blue in these cases, though in the north of Norway black is more common. – Green for agricultural studies — farmers and livestock workers. Rare in the capital; more common in rural areas. – Pink for hairdressing or beauty school.
The way of going out stays the same as the rest of the year — bars, pubs, clubs, outdoor drinking sessions in parks. But during this period some special events are laid on too:
– A massive party at the top of the ski jump at Frognerseteren, exclusively for students in this phase. – The Tryvann: hired buses for groups of students dedicated entirely to going out and causing mayhem, inside and outside the bus.
The common denominator in all cases is generous amounts of sex, drugs and alcohol.
On top of the trousers, all participants get personal cards, feel important — almost famous — and enjoy handing them out. Primary school kids, meanwhile, collect them obsessively. I can already picture the playground trading: — I've got it! — I need it! — Swap?
Although this is technically a once-in-a-lifetime party, there is technically a second chance — if students fail their exams and have to repeat the year, they get another shot. And it seems plausible that the level of debauchery may have a fairly direct relationship with the likelihood of experiencing it again.