Matriculation
”Matriculants” leave the Sheldonian under the watchful eye of a man with an earpiece and a bowler hat
Matriculation is the ceremony during which ordinary people become undergraduates of the University of Oxford.
It is a ceremony steeped in tradition whose substance lasts all of twenty seconds, during which two brief utterances in Latin along the lines of “Ere, mate, will you let these guys be part of the Uni?”, followed by “All right, then.” are exchanged between two officials.
To prepare for this, the people are awoken early and dressed in ridiculous garb (see sub fusc), and shepherded to the Sheldonian Theatre, where the above exchange takes place.
This is customarily followed by a long, boring speech by one of the officials. If the people survive this and escape the Sheldonian unharmed, in extremely traditional cases they may proceed to the Turf Tavern in their sub fusc, where they will get drunk on expensive beer.