From next autumn on, foreign students will be able to get their own, special student overalls.
They aren’t that flattering, but even the university’s rector Aino Sallinen has a pair. No wonder that exchange students have felt left out when it comes to student overalls – a set of ”academic” party-clothing.
Now the Erasmus Student Network in Jyväskylä is hoping to order ESN-overalls. The first order will be made next autumn.
According to the ESN JYY president Marja Ojala, some Finnish ESN-sections already sell ESN’s own blue overalls.
”They have been very popular. Exchange students can seldom buy regular student overalls from the subject associations, because not all of them are offering overalls to exchange students”, she explains.
For example in Oulu, the ESN section ran out of blue exchange student overalls.
The overalls are not merely a nice and unique souvenir you can bring home from your exchange semester. According to ESN JYY’s vice president Maiju Mitrunen, they help to build group spirit.
There are also practical implications: previously it hasn’t really made sense for ESN JYY to organized ”overall parties” for example, although they are common in many other student organizations.
Having a own pair of overalls also lowers the threshold for exchange students to take part in Finnish parties where the dress code is ”haalarit”.
Therefore the leading ladies of ESN JYY don’t believe getting their own overalls would encourage exchange student to only hang out with their own posse.
”It is more a question of trying to organize events, where Finns and foreigners can meet”, Ojala ponders.
Marja Honkonen
paatoimittaja(at)jyy.fi