In 1949, the first student construction squad (SCS) was created at the Leningrad Civil Engineering Institute to work on the collective farms of the Lesogorsk region. Then the squad of 30 people was commanded by the future head of the department of physics L. A. Oborin. Many hundreds of hectares in the Leningrad region were cleared of shrubs and stumps.
The movement of student construction squads developed very actively in our university. The regional committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League assigned to LISI the responsibility of providing state farm squads, district and regional headquarters with engineering personnel.
In connection with the development of virgin and fallow lands of Kazakhstan, it was the LISI team that was the first to go to the virgin lands as a construction squad (in 1954). Fr om 1956 to 1967, LISI students annually traveled to virgin lands, wh ere they harvested crops, built houses, clubs, and schools.
In 1957, 500 LISI students took part in land reclamation work on the Karelian Isthmus.
In 1966, the Tashkent-66 squad consisting of 45 people was sent to restore Tashkent after the earthquake.
In 1968, they went to Czechoslovakia and the GDR.
In 1973–1974 two LISI SCSs bridgemen worked on the construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline.
In 1980, students participated in the construction of the Sinyavinsky poultry complex, the largest in Europe. The Restorer squad worked in the fortresses of Koporye and Oreshek. In the same year, the first experimental year-round squad Creativity was created on the basis of the Faculty of Architecture, where students developed projects during the academic year, and in the summer they themselves brought them to life. So, thanks to their work, new playgrounds appeared in Leningrad.
Students of the LISI SCS also worked at many construction sites in Leningrad, participated in the construction of residential buildings, metro stations. In 1964, the construction of a hostel for 400 places for foreign students was completed (Boitsova lane, 7). As the student building movement developed, so did the geography of the "third semester". In the mid-1960s, there was not a single major construction site in the country that did not employ LISI student construction squads.
In the 90s the central headquarters of the student squads ceased to exist. In the second half of the 90s, only a few squads went to work, preserved thanks to real enthusiasts who, despite the difficulties, did not allow the SCS movement to die out.
In 2007, the first steps towards the revival of the SCS were taken at SPbGASU. Despite the difficulties, the close-knit team of the Lis squad was the first in the last 20 years to achieve its goals, laying the foundation for future SPbGASU student squads.
In 2012, the first pedagogical squad Arlekino appeared at SPbGASU. A year later, the university started a student construction squad Piatnitsa. According to the results of 2014, the Arlekino squad was named the favorite team of St Petersburg, and the Piatnitsa squad was named the best construction squad of the city.
To date, SPbGASU has eight student squads: four construction squads (SCS Lis, SCS Piatnitsa, SCS Cousteau and women's SCS Polza), two pedagogical squads (SPS Arlekino and SPS Svoboda), one archaeological squad SAS Lin' and one agricultural SAS Hermes.