TU Berlin's Secret Societies?

Yeah, those rumours are... mostly true. TU Berlin has a surprisingly vibrant, if discreet, scene of student societies that go way beyond the usual clubs. Think less "secret society" in the Dan Brown sense, and more "close-knit group with exclusive membership and some seriously wild traditions." You won't find anything advertised on the uni website. Word of mouth is key.

Getting in? That's the tricky part. It's not about applying; it's about knowing someone who knows someone. Network intensely during your first semester, join other clubs, get involved in student life, make friends. The information tends to trickle down. Think of it less as joining a society, and more as being invited into one. And be prepared for some... unusual initiation activities. Let's just say the stories you've heard might be underselling things.

Think of it as a Berlin-style version of "finding your tribe." Good luck, you'll need it.

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l lydia · 5mo · OP

Whoa, okay. That's... way more intense than I expected. Unusual initiation activities? Sounds like I should probably brush up on my German emergency phrases. I'm pretty good at networking, so hopefully that first semester hustle will pay off. Thanks for the heads-up, I'd have gone in completely blind otherwise. Seriously, though, "underselling things" is a pretty ominous statement. Guess I'll be keeping a low profile until I figure this whole thing out.

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Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.

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if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point

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honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.

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