Here’s what Bristol students need to give up for Lent this year

It’s that time of year again where we all give up something we love, just so we can righteously brag about it to everyone else.  This is not the season for succumbing to temporal pleasures, but for bettering ourselves and finally reaching our academic potential. To make it easier I’ve listed of some of the great loves of Bristol students which simply must be given up this lent, not just for our good but for the good of humanity.

Vinted

Are you even a Bristol student if you are not squandering away at least half of your weekly budget on this naughty little app? Yes – it’s more ethical than Urban Outiftters – but all good things have their limits, and we all know you’re definitely purchasing way more than you are managing to sell. Perhaps you should use reading week to flog all of the clothes you’ve forgotten about at home, rather than adding five more ‘2000s vintage y2k’ items to your likes which you definitely do not need.

Online shopping in lectures

This brings me onto to my second point. The back row in a lecture hall will, oddly, give you a vantage point over a sea of online retailers instead of people diligently taking notes. It may be tempting, when the lecturer is rambling on just slightly too much, to secretly add another tab on your laptop to browse the sales. But lectures are a time for learning, not spending, and we all know whatever boring bits of information they’re droning on about now, you’ll find yourself frantically trying to cram when those essay deadlines draw closer. I promise, just because the person in front of you is doing it doesn’t make it right, and that leather jacket will still be there once the lecture is over.

Skipping your 9ams

Perhaps slightly worse than in-lecture online browsing is skipping the lecture altogether. 2026 is the year of becoming an academic weapon, and unfortunately those scary deadlines are closer than you think. Let’s be honest, you never feel better for skipping your first class of the day, and in fact are just setting yourself up for failure and a lack of motivation. Give your 9ams some love this term and turn up for them, you won’t regret it.

Hinge

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Lent is the time for giving up all things unholy, and at the very top of that list has to be this godforsaken app where all things sacred are left far behind. If romance is dead, Hinge is the assasin: It’s time to boycott this cursed place where nothing positive is ever achieved, and try actually approaching the person you fancy, rather than sending them a terrible pick-up line that they’ve definitely heard a million times before.

ChatGPT

Much like fast-food, sometimes it is incredibly difficult to abstain from the quick and easy (though of course, worse) option, than actually put in the effort. But it needs to stop. It’s not cool and it’s not clever, and is literally frying our brains into oblivion. This year it is time for us all to give up ChatGPT; we’re better than this. Perhaps if we spent less time online shopping in lectures we wouldn’t need to have our topics spoon-fed to us in bullet-points so simple a toddler could understand (not to mention the horrible environmental impacts).

DJing

Seriously, enough now – Bristol has reached FULL DJ CAPACITY. We need to stop being greedy and leave some decks for the rest of unis. I know you may think you have some unique talent which simply must be heard (Hiatt Baker boys I’m talking to you), but I can assure you Lakota has enough amateur DJs on the roster, we will be OK without your groundbreaking drum and bass mix. How about having a B2B with your skipped lecture slides instead? (This of course excludes female DJs, we can never have enough of you.)

Going to the races

Being a Bristol student, we of course love all things horse-related: but seriously, it’s time to give it a rest now. Dressing up like an old-money tory to gallavant around, blow money on bets, get drunk and inevitably end up on the Invades TikTok account is out. We’ve already taken enough from the horses, let’s give them a break this year and boycott the races.