Organized partiesStudent unions of universities and colleges organize theme-parties weekly at different places of the city. It is worth following the party news sent by the student governments on Facebook, and you can also follow them here, in our Program News link, we provide fresh info.
These parties deserve some attention because with a student ID you have free access and some discounts on some drinks. Famous Hungarian and international Djs appear on these student parties many times, whose own shows are usually very expensive to go to.
Student parties are NOT usually organized in the favorite student clubs (Morrisons, Living Room, etc.) or in dormitory halls, but in an outside location. Dokk Café, 4Bro and Dürer Kert are regular places, but some huge discos like White Angel also host Halloween or Santa parties.
University FestivalsThe tradition of student festivals is very important on some universities, and probably not as important on some others. However, it is sure that each university has at least a few-day-long program where young people can relax a little in the middle of the terms.
The Corvinus University Days (CEN) are organized every year on 1 May nearby the Pest campus of the University, on the field of Nehru park. During these three days, the whole university is outside having beer on the grassy beach, watching stand-up shows in the afternoons, and enjoying the concerts at nights. The brave ones can solve the exercises of the CEN tour in groups hoping for a nice award for the winners.
The other big event of Corvinus University is the Tata festival in every end of June as a closure of the examination period. Near Lake Tata, students of the university and their friends can spend three days in a youth camp and have great fun before summer arrives.
BME has a very active student life.
BME University Days is a three-day festival, which is an absolutely high-standard festival of the category of ‘tent-festivals’. Scooter was a special guest lately among some other stars.
Each faculty on BME has their so called ‘Faculty-day’. The most famous one is the ‘Kolimpia’ in Wigner and the ‘Schönherz Qpa’ in the Schönherz Dormitory. This latter festival lasts for a week, and it has some special features (like a giant projected image on the walls of the dormitory) that attract students from other universities as well.
Unfortunately, the student life of the ELTE is not as active as life on BME or Corvinus. Many students from ELTE visit the BME parties because the two campuses are quite close to each other. There are the Eötvös Days held every year in the middle of May, which is a similar festival to the other ones, with bungee jumping for the bravest students set up between the two main buildings of the university.
There are no special festivals on SOTE, but the IÖCS (the association of self-motivated groups of university instructors) does its best in organizing parties and programs for the medical students. There are ‘freshmen’s after’ following the freshmen’s ball, the ox-barbecue festival, the freshmen’s boat, the ‘letter-weekends’, carnival, and of course the opening and closing parties to frame each academic year.
Programs for students onlyThey pay special attention on greeting, integrating and instructing the university system to all freshmen. This usually begins in the freshmen’s camps a few weeks before September on a countryside camp area. The aims of these four- or five-day camps are to meet and make friends. These few days are very important in freshmen’s life because they can get familiar with those who they will spend their next three years with. This is the best time for getting roommates as well. These camps are for having great fun, doing some naughty drinking tasks where the most important is to bring people closer to each other to create a strong student community.
It is a tradition in some universities to start the first academic year with a so called ‘zero week party’ organized mainly for freshmen. Since many of the new students are from the countryside, it is a great possibility for them to get acquainted with the nightlife of Budapest. They can find the best pubs around the campus where they are going to spend the most of their new life.
The freshmen’s ball season is around October or November in the middle of the first term of the academic year. Because this is the final event of the initiatory ceremony, many senior students come to watch freshmen, as they become real members of the university society. There are famous guests for this event such as Hadouken in Corvinus University in 2010.
‘1 and a half-year’ ball is quite similar to the freshmen’s ball in style. It is organized for all those students who are in the middle of their studies in March every year. There are usually fewer people here than in the freshmen’s ball. The party is sometimes wilder, because the crowd is not that big.
Student UnionsIf you would like to be up-to-date in the university parties, it is important to keep in touch with the student governments and other student organizations, since they arrange events and festivals, and they promote all the parties among students.
ÖCSI (office of self-motivated groups) is the student association on Corvinus University, MISZ (school cooperation) is on BME, HÖK (student government) on ELTE and IÖCS (the association of self-motivated groups of instructors) is on SOTE. They organize all of the parties, freshmen’s camps, balls, ‘zero-week parties’ and many more events and festivals during the year. You can keep in touch on Facebook with the instructors and they help you not miss a party.Student Actions Finally, we would like to draw your attention on some specially successful campaigns that made possible for more than ten thousand students to get half-prize tickets for the Sziget Festival, to go skiing, or to spend a ‘party-week’ on the seaside. The members of the student organizations of each university, or the agents of the organizer companies spread the tickets in the offices, so it is impossible to miss them.
