This is What it’s Like to Live on a College Campus as an Adult

Our apartment at Høgskoleveien 2 is located between the two most visible buildings on the NTNU campus. The first is the studentersamfundet, or student union – a red circular building that includes concert venues, bars, and restaurants. Its unique design and location next by the river make it a landmark in town, and it also serves as an important hub on the city’s bus system. The second is the hovedbygningen, or main academic building. It sits on a hill and is perhaps only rivaled in grandeur by the nearby Nidaros Cathedral.

Studentersamfundet and hovedbygningen.

As we’ve written previously, we live in a beautiful, newly renovated apartment, and it’s in the perfect location – a five-minute walk from Gavin’s office, the gym, and the grocery store, and a ten-minute walk from downtown. We love it and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. But its central location means it is a main thoroughfare for students at all hours of the day – and night.

Before coming here I had the mistaken impression that the robust “campus life” present at so many American universities was not really found in Europe. But that is certainly not the case at NTNU. So, today I want to tell you what these students are up to, at least from our vantage point at Høgskoleveien 2.

Looking down from the hovedbygningen, our apartment is in the white building attached to the yellow building. Nidaros Cathedral and the fjord can be seen in the background.

There is a drinking – and a drinking song – culture. The bedroom window in our ground floor apartment is approximately 10 meters from the student traffic; when we climbed into bed on the first night to the sounds drunk students singing, Gavin noted that this was going to be the thing about our apartment that we wouldn’t like. Surprisingly, just like when we were college students, we’ve learned to let it blend into the background. Nevertheless, I asked my Canadian neighbor – her family is here on sabbatical as well – what her four- and seven-year-old boys think of the atmosphere, and she described it as “eye-opening.”

A typical Trondheim scene.

Like any self-respecting college, there’s an a capella group. They’ve got nothing on the Davidson Generals, but they do have some excellent costumes.

There are 60 sports clubs, everything from your normal stuff like basketball and tennis, to at least six clubs for different kinds of skiing. There are more unique offerings as well, like underwater rugby and quidditch (Norwegian: rumpledunk). There is a student organization that loans out sports equipment for free, and the University owns a couple of cabins on the outskirts of Trondheim, which students can use as a base for their outdoor activities.

All of this came to a head in early October with the start of UKA 2017, a three-and-a-half week-long cultural festival. The festival features concerts, lectures, and interactive classes (e.g., a barista course, whiskey tasting). It’s a pretty big deal — the headline performer this year was Lorde, but it also featured big Scandinavian stars like Ásgeir (recommended) and Sløtface (not recommended). We can hear the base bumping from inside our apartment, and at a particular frequency it causes our bookshelf to shake.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS8T9u0usso&w=560&h=315]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iSm1pc9Bsk&w=560&h=315]

The students have also strung red lights outside our apartment, presumably to illuminate the course for UKA Rundt, a 40-day continuous relay race, that if completed successfully, will break the world record for longest relay. Unfortunately, the lights shine brightly into our apartment.

Just like this:

https://youtu.be/q40fKsRsHFU

I got talked into participating in this relay (40 days * 48 30-minute slots per day = 1,920 runners needed), and was given a middle-of-the-night slot, so I’m writing this while Gavin is sleeping. I won’t be in bed for another four hours. Inevitably this means that — just like a college student — I will be sleeping later tomorrow than any self-respecting adult should sleep on a weekday. I guess I’m fitting right in.

Postscript. The relay was super fun. I’m glad I stayed up for it even though I was tired the next day. Here are a couple of pictures.

In case you’re curious, here’s an aerial tour of NTNU:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2C1A-TuMEw]