Thousands of university students have now descended upon their halls all over the UK.
You may think you know everything about your new uni after researching it to decide if it was the university for you but we have some weird and wonderful facts you just may not have heard.
– The University Of York is famous for its duck population, with a ‘duck density’ league table. One particularly aggressive duck with a red and yellow head has been named ‘Beer Machine’ by students.
– Fry’s chocolate factory that produced the first Easter Egg in the UK in 1873 actually first enabled Bristol University to apply for a Royal Charter.
– Apparently, Senate House at the University of London was never bombed during World War II because Adolf Hitler planned to set up his UK headquarters there.
-Researchers at the University of Warwick have designed and developed a Formula 1 car that is powered by chocolate, steered by carrots and, has bodywork made from potatoes. It can unbelievably still take corners at 125mph.
– During the 19th century, poet Lord Byron kept a tame bear on campus after the University of Cambridge wouldn’t allow him to have a dog. College authorities had no legal arguments as there was no mention of bears in the University statute.
– Brunel University’s architecture was used as a backdrop for the film, A Clockwork Orange.
– All students at the University Of Oxford swear an oath, vowing ‘I hereby undertake not to remove from the library, or to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document, or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the library or kindle therein any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the library; and I promise to obey all rules of the library’
– Students at the University of Leicester were involved in the excavation of Richard III’s remains in 2013.
– University College London was the first to admit female students on the same grounds as men in 1878.
– Led Zeppelin played their first ever gig in the Great Hall at the original Surrey University site in Battersea on Friday 25th October 1968.
– Radiohead played an early show at Sussex University but was apparently booed off stage by unimpressed students.
– The University Of Edinburgh is home to the UK’s oldest student newspaper which was started in 1887.
– A professor from Imperial College London is developing a hangover-free synthetic booze that he says will replace alcohol by 20150.
– Durham University is the first uni in the UK to offer a ‘Harry Potter and the age of Illusion’ module.
