Do students in your country sing “Gaudeamus” at the end of high school?

31 comments

1. It wasn’t a thing in my high school and I’m pretty sure it’s not a thing in Polish high schools in general. Apart from that, a very small amount of high school students learn Latin nowadays.

2. It’s sung at student clubs in University, not in high school.

3. No, we just go to the pub with our favorite teachers and get hammered. Some singing may occur, but not this song in particular.

4. No it’s not common in Germany.

   But we learnt this song in Latin lessons and I got particularly traumatised because we had to learn this with a particularly mean substitute teacher who was very strict and liked to humiliate pupils and really intimidated me.

5. I remember receiving papers with the lyrics to Gaudeamus igitur, around the time of the end of highschool/gymnasium. I don’t remember if we had to sing along, I think it was more in the sense of voluntarily joining in spirit. Memory is a bit foggy since it was 15 years ago and we went drinking in the park afterwards.

6. We sing this at the beginning of cantuses!

   The louder and drunker, the better!

7. Yeah, we do that in Slovenia. Usually reserved for “gimnazija” students (top-tier high schools preparing for university).

8. I’ve never sung it in high school, and as far as I know, no one in the Netherlands does.

   I have, however, sang it quite a bit with Belgian student clubs. It’s an important song for starting a cantus with most clubs.

9. No we sing the Swedish student song: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp-QtDh_ItA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp-QtDh_ItA)

   It was composed by a prince Gustaf of Sweden and Norway during the 19th century.

   In the end there is another song that is more sung by the students themselves during the graduation day, called studenten as you used to do tests for university on that day.

10. No. There’s very little Latin used in education here anymore, other than for university parchments (certificates) and the ceremonial part of graduation ceremonies in the older universities, which hardly anyone can actually understand. It’s usually read out rather awkwardly and phonetically, a bit like doing some kind of magic incantation !

    Latin is still taught by a few upmarket private, religious schools, but that’s about the extent of it.

11. I’ve never heard about this song before.

    If we were to associate a song to the end of high school, it would definitely be «[Notte prima degli esami](https://youtu.be/KwPG6HvY9PQ)», *Night before the exams*. It’s a very famous song and is extremely popular for that occasion.

12. We don’t sing it, but it’s common to play it at the university graduation.

13. In Lithuania is it considered as university students’ anthem, not associated with high school whatsoever

14. No way, there’s only one graduation song for students in the Greek-speaking realm: [Anna Vissi – Τα μαθητικά τα χρόνια](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi3X5RQwHJo) ([lyrics](https://lyricstranslate.com/el/ta-mathitika-ta-hronia-%CF%84%CE%B1-%CE%BC%CE%B1%CE%B8%CE%B7%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AC-%CF%84%CE%B1-%CF%87%CF%81%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%B9%CE%B1-student-years.html))

    Yes, it’s very cringe.

15. 100 years ago it was a common (university) student song. Old student fraternities still have it in their songbooks but the average German student doesn’t know the song.

16. Yes, the graduates [usually sing it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm_DLOA7nEU) at the end of the graduation ceremony.

17. Yes, that’s a common tradition. It’s also sung in universities. Most of our universities have student choirs and they sing that song, among many other songs.

18. Yeah, sung in Finland at high school /gymnasium / lukio graduation. Cool to know it’s done in Romania too!

19. In Germany it’s a signature song of [Burschenschaften](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burschenschaft). Usually, you wouldn’t know it as a high school student but if you are in university and you think “How about I join a fraternity where people will slap me with a sword, that sounds like fun”, you will learn to sing it in various states of alcohol poisoning.

    … well it’s more like a saber than a sword and not all Burschenschaften fight [Mensuren](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_fencing), but the part about the song isn’t hyperbole. They sing it a lot.

20. Sang it a lot at university, but not before.

21. We don’t sing anything at the end of secondary school no.

22. It’s not commonly found in the UK, but it is sung at some formal occasions at some of the older and more traditional universities e.g. St Andrews

23. In Czechia, Gaudeamus Igitur is associated with university rather than high school. Sung or played during graduation ceremonies.

24. We sang Gaudeamus at all kinds of occasions at my secondary school, but only the first Latin verse and then a verse that’s a translation of it.

25. Yes, we do. We sang it just before ending the graduation ceremony

26. This is the anthem of the University of St Andrews! I hadn’t heard it until I went to uni.

27. Yes, in Hungary it is very common. I still remember how to sing it, but I am unsure whether we had to sing at the primary school or high school graduation tho. The way we sang it was the Latin version first, then sang the hungarian translation too.

28. I’ve had to do it in my first year at uni. It’s probably not widespread, but I studied in the romano-germanic languages department and latin was a compulsory subject. It was some event aimed at celebrating that we became students, but it felt really forced and like it was something cool and fun back in the day when all the dinosaurs teaching us were our age

29. No. I don’t think there’s much pomp and circumstance regarding the end of the school year here in Portugal, at least in my experience. The 11th and 12th grade school years end a bit early due to the national exams, and during the weeks leading up to those there aren’t any proper classes, though teachers are present to help prepare you for them. So what that means is that you won’t be seeing all your classmates as often, and once you’ve done the exams and received your grades that’s that. There’s no formal ending, especially because some students might technically end the school year later because they participated in the second phase of exams.

    Now in university however, there does tend to be an actual, proper graduation event (even though it technically happens before the end of the school year).

30. I have never heard of this. I haven’t heard of any Norwegian song tradition at the end of high school or uni, but maybe there are some. I hope so, it sounds nice (I didn’t get any ceremony at the end of my second BA in uni because of corona, but maybe there would have been some singing)

31. I’ve never even heard of this song. I think you’d honestly have to put a gun to the kids’ heads to make them sing anything in school by that age anyway.

    Besides, it probably wouldn’t be wise to ask us to sing anything with the word “molest” in the lyrics. When you reached that line, the entire room would immediately burst out in laughter.