Your official unofficial Rutgers University dictionary

You have a lot to learn

As soon as you set foot on campus, it’s clear to see: Rutgers has its own culture. While this culture mostly consists of binge drinking, fat sandwiches, and other questionable choices – it’s all ours. And as such, we take immense pride in it. Every culture has its own slang and RU is no different. So here’s a short list of terms and phrases you will overhear constantly on and around campus.

“Diversity”

Here is a term that you may think you know the definition of, but in Rutgers’ case, it differs from what you might expect. Rutgers prides itself on being one of the most diverse colleges in the nation and this is certainly true. In any one of your classes, you will have people from all parts of the world, the country, and New Jersey. Diversity is a great thing no doubt, and it helps to promote tolerance the that nearly every Rutgers student practices. But, what good is “diversity” when people don’t really talk to other groups of people? For the most part, international students keep to other international students, sorority girls keep to other sorority girls, and the other groups on campus tend to all keep to themselves. The list of never-ending cliques at Rutgers continues.

“Football”

Despite the fact that Rutgers is the literal birthplace of college football, and we do have a lot of love for Rutgers football, we don’t often show solidarity for the football game. When Rutgers football games are televised, by the end of the 3rd quarter the entire student section is empty, except for a few hopeful souls. This is likely to blame on account of the fact that sticking around to watch our team get so brutally crushed by practically everyone we verse is not easy to stomach. Therefore, while football culture is alive and well at Rutgers despite our awful team, our definition of football varies drastically from many other schools.

For Rutgers students, football means day drinking starting at 9am, stumbling onto a shuttle bus to show up to the stadium halfway through the first quarter, leaving shortly after half time, falling asleep for a few hours, then waking up still drunk and going out to even more parties at night. Then when your friends and family back home ask you if you went to the game, you can say yes, and even show them pictures, but in reality – we know what you actually mean when you say “I went to the football game on Saturday.”

Fuck Penn State

Penn State and Rutgers have always had a bitter rivalry, despite the fact that – let’s face it Knights – Penn State leaves us in the dust in football. It seems as though the meaning from this offensive phrase has detached from itself entirely and “Fuck Penn State” is now a rally cry, a great unifier of sorts. We always chant it during third downs in football – even when we’re not playing them, we yell it at frat parties, and we say it to a group of drunk people in passing while en route to a party. And without fail, the group replies fanatically with resounding phrases and screams of approval. It also is a great way to break the ice with a person you’ve been eyeing at a party. “So uh, Fuck Penn State, right?”

Ratio

You’re gonna wish you were back in fifth grade math class after hearing what Rutgers ratio means. Basically, it means that if you’re a male who’s not in a frat or on a guest list, and you don’t have a harem of 5-8 women tagging along with you to a frat party, you’re not getting into said frat party. A typical ratio to get into a party is usually 5:1, meaning 5 women to 1 man, but during particularly crazy party weekends – like Halloweekend or on game days – that ratio can climb to 8:1.

Frats do this so parties are always crawling with women and are scarce on males. While there are some unsubstantiated claims that say that frats only uphold ratio so party-going men get fed up with this system and join frats in order to bypass the hassle to party, we all know that isn’t the case. And whether or not this system is sexist is also hotly debated. Adding monetary injury to insult: even if you manage to have ratio, you most likely are still going to have to throw down money to get in – a fiver usually does the trick – while the girls you came in with have to pay zilch.

RU Screw

Whether it’s the faulty buses that make you show up 20 minutes late to an exam, getting placed in awful housing because of a poor lottery number, not getting a really important class you need because it’s full, or finding an ACTUAL screw in your burrito – RU Screw is what you blame your Rutgers-related misfortunes on. No matter who you are, you’re going to come into direct contact with at least one RU Screw during your time here, and there’s nothing that can really be done about it. Just take a deep breath, accept your bad luck for what it is, and know that every student before and after you will go through something similar.

Yup, that’s an actual RU Screw

Taking the L

In a similar vein to the RU Screw, “taking an L” or “taking the L” simply means taking a loss. It means you’re shit out of luck. While other college campuses also use this term, it seems oddly Rutgers-centric or at least East Coast specific as many out-of-state students just don’t seem to get the meaning behind it. But, if it did in fact originate on our stomping grounds, it’s truly no surprise. Rutgers students are no strangers to bad luck. Need further explanation? Just look at our Rutgers 2016 year in review.

Weekend Buses

Ah, the bane of Rutgers student’s existence. Rutgers buses operate regularly on weekdays, going from one campus to another and back again. They’re needed to do so during the week so that students can try get to class on time, though the buses will still fail us even then. But on the weekends, buses don’t go simply from one campus to another. Weekend buses go to all five campuses in one loop, meaning that it will take you considerably longer to get from point A to point B. The weekend buses also run far less frequently – you could be looking at a waiting time of 35+ minutes between each bus while the normal wait time for a bus is around 5 minutes. If you live on any other campus than College Ave and intend to party, buckle up. The buses somehow manage to run even less frequently than 35 minutes, and being on those nightmarish midnight bus rides will make you queasy sober pretty damn quick.

And there you have it, a short list of Rutgers-specific definitions. Do you have any more you can think of?

More
Rutgers University