''It's like being in hell,'' said one university student, describing the feeling of taking part in one of Thailand's notorious, and seemingly intractable, university hazing rituals. The practice of hazing in Thailand, which goes under the acronym SOTUS (Seniority: Order: Tradition: Unity: Spirit), or Rab Nong (welcoming the young), is thought to have originated in Kasetsart University in the late 1940s, modeled on hazing at Cornell University and other universities in the US. Cornell has now prohibited hazing; in Thailand it's incorrigibly recurrent in many universities.