Tell us about your school's "culture"

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I've been thinking about this for a while now... every school, particularly middle school and college, is basically its own planet. If you think about it, the rules and people and work and structure and everything are different. I love that, and I find it endlessly entertaining to learn about these things in different schools.

So my question to you is: what traits are exclusive to your school? What "rules" are there, or little mannerisms that everyone follows? What's unique or special about it? What traditions and events do you have? What are special things that everyone new to your school needs to know? I don't mean school rules like what every school has, but more funny student-made mannerisms or common things that everyone acknowledges or acts on. Like, here, I'll start. And I'm going to categorize stuff because we have a lot of rules.

GENERAL
- No one shall talk to the vice principal unless he talks to them first.
- Former teachers are a fresh subject for clever ridicule.
- Extremely unpopular and unlikable kids are called "fishbait".
- 8th graders are the elite, 7th graders vary individually, and 6th graders are scum.
- Classrooms 36 and 34 have an ongoing feud with each other for no apparent reason.
- One should not take off their hat when a teacher tells them to. No one cares.

8TH GRADE LUNCH
- I don't know about 6th and 7th grade because I'm an 8th grader.
- Tables in all grades are referred to by a letter (A, B, C, or F) along with a number from 1 to 6.
- Table A5 may not be occupied by more than three people at a time. This is by popular request of the two people who already sit there. So basically, they don't like a lot of guests.
- Give your friends a hug whenever the girls at F4 aren't arguing. It means they've made temporary peace.
- Never allow teachers who may be in the cafeteria to sit at your table.
- You are not permitted to sit at C2 if your current shoes are worth less than $75.

BUS
- 6th graders must sit in the front of the bus.
- 7th graders must sit in the middle.
- 8th graders must sit in the back. Only 8th graders are allowed in the back.
- If a 7th grader wants to sit in the back, they must be with an 8th grade ally.
- If a 6th grader wants to sit in the back, they must be with three 8th grade allies.
- New students must sit in the front of the bus for two months. After this time they can sit with the rest of their grade level.

GYM
- Everyone must take their gym clothes home on Fridays to wash them.
- Singing in the locker room is mandatory.
- Sneaking out of the locker room and around the back of the school before the class is over is fine. One should do it whenever possible.
- Dodgeball is deemed too violent by the county, so we play a game called "rimdodge" instead. Rimdodge is awesome, and anyone who says otherwise will be shunned for a week.

So yeah, that's basically it. I think you see what I'm asking for here, no? So feel free to share your amusing or absurd nuggets of school culture. I think this could turn out to be a very interesting thread

The populars must sit at the back, whilst the so-sos sit in the middle. The freaks sit at the front.

The year 7 guys can be either populars or so-sos. The girls can be populars, so-sos or freaks.

When in groups, the populars, so-sos and freaks must stay together. A so-so may be invited to join the populars group.

If a popular invites a freak into the group they are downgraded to a so-so.

The freaks are not allowed to speak to a populars or so-sos unless they speak first.


Theres more, but I'm feeling a bit too sick to type it all up

^ Aha, I wish my school social statuses were as simple as "popular", "so-so", or "freak". 'Cause at my school we rate popularity on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being a rejected nerd-freak and 10 being supremely popular and liked by everyone. My friends and I fall around 7.

I am in a school of 70, class of 08 is made of 17, 10 of which are away for football tourneys (yippee). I like being the freak, someone's gotta. I can relate to them more despite my extroversions, randomness, and complexity to remain popular. I will be a rebel valedictorian, blasting Star Wars music for the walk, and keeping my speech very opaque as usual. I am the only geek in a jock school and the effect of my extroversion is being the friggin' mascot. Everybody is fairly nice, but there are finally cliques forming and I can't stand it! Furthermore, the new faculty are fairly strict, finally seeing the true, painful essence of a fledgling bible-belt school instead of the coast-along unaccredited freak show I am used to. All my fellow freaks are either

Home-schooled
Didn't qualify for aid
Graduated

NT Conformity sucks!

My high school had nearly 3,000 students. Class of 1998 had 700 students (I was ranked 33rd in terms of GPA).

The dominant clique was the Tejano culture (my high school was about 70% Hispanic). Coming in at a distant 2nd was the kicker (country music, cowboys, etc.) culture. I didn't have a "culture" per se. I mainly hung out with the other honor students.

My junior college was more of a mix of everything. But cliques and cultures were less recognizable here than in high school, despite there not being dress codes in comparison to high school.

The university I am attending now is as cliquish as high school. The dominant groups are the kickers and holy rollers. And the Caribbean culture is popular--we have a large number of students from the Caribbean, despite my school being on the border between Texas and Oklahoma. The majority of student organizations are religious-based, despite it being a state university. Probably less than 10 students who *could* have Aspie tendencies.

Tim

the only "real" group at my school is the metalheads. wearing mostly black clothes and big boots.
surprisingly nice people, thats why i hang out with them

My college has over 10, 000 people. I'm not sure how many are full time though. So, as you can see it's a pretty big place and you can get a little lost in the swarms of people.

It's very multicultural - has a lot of Arabs, Indians, Pakistanis, Carribeans and Polish people. The cultures have sort of integrated but I still find there are divides - like blacks hanging mostly with other blacks, muslims with other muslims. Islam is one of the biggest religions in the college, so the cafeteria and many nearby shops serve halal meat.

Our college also has a bit of a "rudeboy" reputation. People seem to separate into 2 groups - rudeboy and nonrudeboy and the two don't really mix well. Those in the rudeboy group tend to separate into their own gangs, which are largely determined on religion and race and you're never starved of a good fight between them. Good news is, unless you're one of them, you're unlikely to ever get involved with any violence. So generally, despite it being rough, you're pretty safe if you don't get involved.

I can't remember any of my schools have particular groupings like goth, popular, geeky e.t.c they tended to blend into one another.

Once of the high schools I went to was almost exclusively Chinese and Korean. Most of the kids there were from really rich families and yet practically all of them were in ESL. There was a lot of tension between the white minority and Asian majority. All the Asian parents pushed their kids to the limit to excel and be the best while the white parents were much more laissez-faire. Thus the Chinese girls won all the awards while the white boys got nothing. They even had separate parent councils because so many of the parents couldn't speak English. Believe you me - it was a highly uncomfortable situation to be in for many of the NTs there (including the teachers), never mind aspies.

My junior college had 12,000 students, and the university I attend now has 6,000 students.

Tim

These are the rules of my college

Learning
- The teacher is ALWAYS right even if he's wrong.
- The credibility of your teacher is paramount even over more qualified professors.
- When your teacher says "understand the subject" he really means "memorise it word by word", and vice versa.
- Not answering exam questions using the exact words used by the teacher in his notes will result in a "0" mark, even if the meanings are the same.
- The students are not expected to be more knowledgable than the teacher. Being so is a heresy and subject to punishment.
- It is normal to expect the teacher to only know his subject within the scope of his notes.
- Complaning to the student council will only result in a "we will look into it" response and nothing more. Therefore it is a waste of time.
- Regardless of their admission, being good with the teacher DOES have an effect on your marks. Therefore do pick the opportunity to give him gifts and chat as much with him as possible.
- Showing interest is much more important than showing talent for the subject.
- In other words, a student who draws like crap but constantly whines how he desires to be the greatest artist one day will be more appreciated than a silent student who draws photorealistic art that can make the likes of Stan Lee run for their money.

Social
- It is obligatory to spread shameful events that happen to your dearest 'friend' to the whole school.
- It is obligatory to popularise the methods of namecalling your dearest friend.
- Any good acheivements that your friends have made should be insulted and degraded as much as possible, and vice versa.
- If you are alone you are a loser.
- If you are different you are a loser.
- If you question the lecturers you are a loser.
- If you refuse to sign attendence for others you are a loser.
- If you refuse to cheat or let others cheat in exams you are a loser.
- If you are unique AND handsome, anticipate a lot of attention from the opposite sex (it happened to me - 5 times).
- Once you are a target of someone's crush, it is over for you. Regardless of whether you turn up or turn down on her, you will be gossiped and slandered to the point of commiting suicide (happened to me too, but somehow I survived).

Dorm
- You MUST periodically raid your roommate's closet in search of funny clothes, smelly socks and porn.
- You MUST play porn when your friends come and visit your room to have a chat, regardless of the consent of your roommate.
- The time for sleep is 5 am and the time to wake up is 4 pm.
- Any roommates that tries to live by the regulation should be alienated and humiliated as humanly as possible. Forced conversion is strongly recommended.
- Bringing opposite sex to the room is theoretically banned. However, the word "theoretically" is subject to interpretation.
-

Any college in Malaysia fits all of the above, especially the public ones.

Yeah, you really should not be studying here, unless you like the challenge of competing against other job applicants using a degree from a remote third-world country ("University Mala-what?I'm sorry, we no longer offer any more interviews for today. Bye bye").

My high school culture revolved around three things: having a car, Abercrombie & Fitch, and sport teams. So if you didn't have a car, wear Abercrombie & Fitch, and weren't at least friends with an athlete, you were pretty much a non-entity. Since I wasn't any of those things, 90% of the school population didn't even know I existed. Among the remaining 10%, 6% were bullies (they bullied me mercilessly on daily basis), and 3% were neutral. So only 1% were nice to me, and only 3 people were actually my friends. As a result, I wouldn't go through high school again for all the money in the world.

My college has over 10,000 and literally 40-50% are of the same ethnic/religious background and from the SAME city. It's very annoying because they all have a city accent and think they are the greatest thing to grace the earth. For them, it's like highschool extended. They know lots of people from their city and highschool. I almost feel bad for them because they are somewhat missing out on the opportunity of being on your own in a new place. They hang out with people they've gone to school with since kindergarten. It's annoying because they and their friends still act like they are in highschool. They are the kids disrupting the class if there is a weak professor. It soooo annoying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mason_University

George... MASON!! !!
George... MASON!! !!
George... MASON!! !!
GO PATRIOTS!! !! !! !