The Tab Cambridge Tarot: a reading foretelling your academic downfall

Welcome, weary scholar. You’ve ignored all warnings. You scoffed at deadlines. You thought the third glass of wine wouldn’t hurt. And now you’ve come to the cards, desperate for a sign, a prophecy, or at least some semblance of spiritual comfort. Bad news: the spirits aren’t offering comfort. Only chaos.

Let us begin the sacred ritual.

The Reading: Three Cards to Doom You

Your fate shall be divined from the three sacred cards of The Tab Tarot: The Past, The Present, and The Future. Each will be drawn from the most cursed deck of all: an unholy blend of symbology, Girton JCR minutes, and the wailing of students still trapped in the Law Library.

The cards have spoken.

Card I: The Eight of Caffeine (Reversed) – The Past

Ah, the Eight of Caffeine -reversed-. A tragic omen. This card shows a student fleeing a pile of untouched books, their KeepCup shattered on the floor. The moon is high. The essay was due yesterday.

In the upright position, this card might symbolise taking responsibility and leaving behind shallow things like “sleep” and “happiness.” But reversed, it’s a haunting record of past sins:

• Using my tarot power, I guess that you thought going to Revs on a Wednesday instead of finishing your dissertation plan was “living in the moment.”
• I think you told your DoS that your essay was “in progress” when, in fact, the only thing in progress was your descent into TikTok-induced amnesia.
• I see you promised yourself you’d read ‘Bede’s Ecclesiastical History’. Yet, you got as far as the introduction before spiralling into an existential crisis and deciding instead to deep-clean your kettle.

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The Eight of Caffeine -reversed- doesn’t judge. It simply reminds. The guilt you feel? That’s not your conscience. That’s the tarot talking.

Card II: The Tower – The Present

Oh dear. The Tower. There’s no coming back from this one. You’ve drawn the Academic Thermonuclear Option.

In this scene, lightning strikes a college (probably Caius), flames erupt from the top floor (likely the NatSci department), and tiny figures throw themselves out of windows. One of them is wearing a gown. Another clutches an annotated copy of King Lear.

You are in your “Icarus moment.” You’ve flown too close to the sun on wings of caffeinated hubris and now find yourself:

• Emailing supervisors with apologies that begin “I know it’s last minute but…”
• Copying footnotes from JSTOR PDFs like a medieval scribe possessed.
• Crying in the UL because someone breathed near your plug socket.

The Tower signals collapse, upheaval, and spiritual exfoliation. Your friendships are fraying, your academic discipline has disintegrated, and you’ve taken to speaking in faltering Early Modern English.

Worst of all? You might, just might, have to ask for an extension.

Card III: Death (but it’s just the Tripos) – The Future

Do not panic. Death is not literal. It’s metaphorical. Unfortunately, that metaphor is Tripos-induced ego death.

This card depicts a student hunched over a paper in the Senate House. A robed skeleton passes by, dropping a crumpled class list. The sky is grey. Pigeons are screaming. You are wearing your mother’s disappointment like a second skin.

Death heralds the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. It is the phoenix moment – the razing of everything you were so that something vaguely employable might rise from the ashes.

Here is what awaits:

• You write your final essay in one caffeine-fuelled night. It is 4,000 words long. 1,300 of those are the word “however.”
• You submit the essay and immediately forget everything about it, including what subject it was.
• Your dreams are haunted by a footnote you forgot to include, which now walks the corridors of your college library whispering, “I was meant to be APA.”

At the end of this journey, you emerge changed. Hollow, yes. Emotionally scorched? Absolutely. But there is a strange peace to it – a kind of liberation in knowing you’ve seen the abyss and returned (albeit with a 2:2 and a thousand-yard stare).

Final Omen: The Fool (you)

To complete the reading, one final card leaps from the deck unbidden, as chaotic and uninvited as your first-year self mistakenly sitting at the high table in your first formal. It is The Fool, and yes, it represents you.

The Fool ends the tarot journey. They’re blissfully unaware of the cliff they’re about to walk off.

This card is not judgement. It is prophecy. You will fall. Perhaps gloriously. Perhaps with a sort of tragic dignity. But you will also continue. There will be another term, another essay, another pub trip where someone casually asks, “You done with work yet?” and you feel your soul leave your body.

In truth, The Fool is not a warning. It is a mercy. A reminder that everyone at Cambridge is just winging it, smiling politely and living on the audacity of hope.

Reading the cards.

The end is near:

The cards have spoken. Your academic downfall is nigh. But all is not lost. Here are three spiritually dubious ways to survive the coming darkness:

1. Offer a ritual sacrifice to your College Library – Leave behind a blood orange San Pellegrino and a pack of Haribo Tangfastics as tribute. Whisper your essay question into the book drop.
2. Chant your bibliography at the River Cam – This will not help. But it will feel important. Bonus points if the ducks respond.
3. Forgive yourself – Seriously. Everyone’s falling apart. No one actually finished Ulysses. (I hope so anyway.) Your supervisors are just people who chose eternal studenthood over real jobs. The only real crime is pretending to have it all together.

Final Thoughts:

Academic downfall is not failure. It’s just an aesthetic. Like cottagecore, but with more crying and more mushrooms.

So wear your doom with pride. Cry in the library. Laugh at your essays. Do your best and then let the wind take it.

The spirits have given me their wisdom, and they say to you today:

ASNaCs= “You will not fail. You will merely… academically rebrand.”

Historians=  “Your dissertation will be quoted in precisely zero future academic works—and that is peace.”

 Second year law students= “In the ashes of your essay, a new LinkedIn post shall rise.”

 Anyone at Robinson= “All things shall pass—even that passive-aggressive supervisor comment.”

TrinMo’s= “You’re not the problem, we are.”

NatScis (earth science)= “He who bookmarks JSTOR articles without reading them shall know despair.”

Third Year Englings= “Yes, you are the main character. Unfortunately, it’s a tragedy.”

First Years at Jesus= “Your essay title shall echo through eternity: ‘Untitled Document 3.’”

Archaeologists= “The spirits suggest you try submitting your tears as part of your bibliography.”

Hockey Players= “The spirits suggest submitting your dreams as coursework. They’re more coherent than your actual argument.”

CompSci’s= “Your essay is not too short. It is elliptical, minimalist, and postmodern.”

Engineers=  “The bell of Great St Mary’s rings not for time, but for your last shred of hope.”

Rowers= “The 2km PB isn’t going to happen if you keep downing Lemsip like a drug addict”