Aarhus regatta founders say student event work strengthens CV

Organising Aarhus University’s annual student regatta can show employers that applicants take responsibility beyond their own careers, co-founder Anne Lene Riis tells DR.

Kapsejladsen, which takes place each year before exams begin in May, centres on a relay race involving beer. Competitors must drink a bottle quickly and correctly, spin around ten times and row across a lake and back.

The event now attracts tens of thousands of spectators, while student societies from Aarhus University compete for the trophy known as the Golden Basin. In 2023, it was named the city’s best cultural experience.

But the event began with a need for a stronger sense of community. When Riis started studying medicine in 1989, she felt that student life focused too heavily on academic performance.

During an introductory-week orienteering race, tutors laughed when students did not know words such as hepar, the medical term for liver.

Riis found a different kind of community through Umbilicus, the medical students’ social committee. She had previously volunteered at Grøn Koncert, where the focus was on cooperation, responsibility and working with many different kinds of people.

She joined Umbilicus after being told that it was possible to combine her studies with association work.

“When I joined Umbilicus, I met people who were more like me,” Riis says.

The social committee was not always popular. As exams approached, there was an expectation that Friday bars should stop so students could study in peace.

Riis was living in a university residence at the time, next to a university park that she felt was mostly decorative. She suggested moving the Friday bar to the park and organising activities by the lake.

The regatta still follows much the same format as it did in 1991, when the boats were first put on the water. Competitors row across the lake, drink a beer, spin around and row back.

At first, the competition was mainly between medical and dental students. Riis remembers that the dentists had a smart kayak, while the medical students used a limp inflatable boat.

She cannot say with certainty who won the first race. She believes the medical students did, but suspects they cheated.

Riis helped organise Kapsejladsen but never competed in the boats herself. After finishing her studies, she watched as the small initiative grew into a colourful tradition. One of the most unusual developments, she says, was when Circus Arena was brought in for an opening procession with an elephant.

She is pleased that the event now includes all student societies that want to take part and says it is valuable that societies from different courses work together.

Her time in Umbilicus changed her student years. The parties did not replace her studies, but the community gave her the motivation to continue. Members helped one another prepare for exams because nobody should fail simply because they were involved in Umbilicus.

Learning to look beyond your own career

Riis still sees value in the work carried out by student social committees. She says it prepares students for working life by teaching them to take responsibility, cooperate and make things work with others.

“It is a committed community. You have to organise a party and make it happen. You have fun along the way, but you also have to clean up in the middle of the night while the others go on into town,” she says.

Simply drinking heavily and going home to sleep is not enough, Riis says.

Karen, who has just started an engineering degree and appears in the DR programme The Last Party, also found the sense of community she had been missing through a student social committee.

She did not qualify to compete for the engineering students’ society FUT at this year’s Kapsejladsen. She nevertheless does not regret the time she spent on the committee, where she found a sense of belonging that made her feel more at home when student life in Aarhus became difficult and her parents on Zealand felt far away.

Riis also believes that involvement in organising Kapsejladsen can be a positive addition to a CV.