From unwashed trackies to countless coffees: Here’s how to spot a UCL final year student

Ah, final year: The home stretch. Or that’s what we tell ourselves. We’ve become walking, talking, caffeinated zombies, dragging ourselves to the library to work on those dissertations.

Do we even look human any more? Honestly, no. Do we even have blood in our body? No, it’s all coffee. Are we putting off grad scheme applications? Certainly.

So, if you want to avoid sleep-deprived and over-stressed final year students, here’s how to spot us so you can keep a wide berth.

 1. ‘I wear the same sweatpants day in, day out’

Unlike Daniel Radcliffe who wore the exact same outfit in 2007 to get the paparazzi off his back, we’re not fooling anyone. At some point we just stopped caring about clothes. It’s not that we don’t own anything nice—it’s that being presentable doesn’t mean much anymore.

Who do we need to impress? Professors? It’s too late. Some students admit to not washing their jumper for weeks in a row. “It’s like a sad security blanket,” one student said, and honestly, I get that.  The final-year “outfit” is now an amalgamation of unwashed sweatpants and shoes that may or may not have become sentient.

 2. ‘I live in the Student Centre’

Might as well stop paying for rent and move in to the Student Centre. It has showers and a vending machine, what more do you need?

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You’ll find most final-years trapped in an endless loop of existential dread and procrastination. One student who’d been in there for almost 48 hours could barely recall their home address: “I don’t think my flatmates expect me to come home.  This is my home now.” An innocent “I’m going to the SC to focus” can turn into a perpetual doom-scroll of impending deadlines and job applications.

3. ‘I used to get excited about my degree, now I’m just empty’

Ask any final-year student what we’re doing post-graduation and you’ll get one of two responses: The dead-eyed look of someone who has accepted the fact are about to be dumped into the void of capitalism with nothing but a degree that qualifies us for a mid-level management position, or we’ll attempt to sound hopeful by saying: “I might like… travel or something. Or write a book? I don’t know.”

One student made a crushing statement, which sadly I think a  lot of us can relate to: “I know I’ll end up in a job I hate because that’s the natural course of events when you live in a broken system.” That one hurts.

4. ‘Networking is just being ghosted by people I don’t even have a crush on’

It’s almost even worse. Forget the emotional investment of a crush, try the financial dependence and ability to afford food first.  Networking is no longer about building relationships; it’s a desperate game of “will someone please hire me so I don’t have to move back into my parents?”

According to several final year students, it’s not networking; it’s just throwing feelers into the void, hoping someone—anyone—will catch us before we sink into unemployment.

5. ‘If you want to ask me how I’m doing, don’t’

This one hurts to write. Ask a final year student how we’re doing, and we’ll try to muster up “I’m fine!” while giving you a smile that can only be described as a hollow cry for help. “I’ve honestly perfected it, it’s almost so good it tricks me too,” one final year admitted.

In reality, we’re hiding a full-blown panic under that thin veneer of pleasantries. You’ll find us clutching a cup of overpriced coffee like it’s the last anchor to our sanity, trying to suppress the thought that, no, we definitely didn’t get enough sleep last night, and no, we definitely aren’t going to finish our dissertation before the deadline. But, hey, it’s fine.

6. ‘I was so full of hope, now it’s just…meh’

Hope. I remember her. “I chose my degree with passion, I thought I might change the world or something,” one student said. Defeated and finishing his fifth coffee at 11am he continued: “Three years later, I’ve realised that my degree has just been an expensive exercise in misery that realistically, I’ll never be able to afford to pay back”. Bleak.

7. ‘Job application descriptions make me feel subhuman’

One student recalled how they used to laugh at the notion of applying for jobs with an actual cover letter—you know, the kind that takes hours of crafting just to be rejected with a canned email. Now? They admitted to not being able to get through the first sentence of a job description without questioning their entire existence.

The act of applying for jobs often feels like a form of emotional self-harm, where many students are made to jump through countless hoops to just get ghosted by potential employers. “It’s honestly a cruel joke”, one student said. “It’s more toxic than my last relationship.”

‘Nuff said.

8. ‘What day is it?’

Ask us about that lecture from two weeks ago, and we’ll look at you like you’re speaking in a foreign tongue. Ask us about assignment deadlines and we’ll cling to extensions like it’s nobody’s business.

“I haven’t submitted an assignment on time this entire year,” one final-year told The London Tab. “I don’t attend lectures anymore, it’s better for everyone that I’m not there – it’s for their own good”.

Yet somehow, we’ll manage to graduate, and whilst this might have been a light hearted poke at final years, if you are struggling you can contact your university’s wellbeing team or find support by contacting Samaritans by calling 116 123 or via the website.