From locked in to clocked out: Here are the eight people you’ll meet in every KCL lecture

As the new academic year gets into full swing, promises are made (and inevitably broken). I won’t sleep through my alarm. I won’t skip any lectures. I won’t be hungover. Fast forward three weeks, and those resolutions are already a distant memory.

From the academic weapon who is taking notes before the lecturer has even opened their PowerPoint to the person who has somehow spent the entire lecture playing Clash of Clans.

So, here are the eight characters you’re guaranteed to encounter in your lectures this year.

1. The person typing before the lecturer has even started talking

You’ve sat down, you’ve done and semi-understood the reading, and you’re feeling relatively prepared for the lecture. Then you look to your left and there’s a student with a split screen, seven tabs open, and their fingers moving at approximately 200 words per minute. It’s only 9:04.

The lecturer is still sipping their coffee, and the only thing on the projector is the title slide. What could they possibly be writing? Suddenly, your carefully cultivated sense of academic confidence has disappeared. You thought you were prepared. You were not prepared.

2. Stationery queen

After that significant blow to your self-esteem, you look to your right – only to feel even more inadequate. A student is sitting there with what appears to be half of WHSmith – sorry, TG Jones – spread across their desk.

There’s a fountain pen. Six highlighters. Two notebooks. Sticky tabs in at least four colours. Your measly biro and 99p A5 notebook suddenly look deeply embarrassing. Surely there must be someone normal in this lecture theatre?

3. The person with split screen

Finally, a much more reasonable student. Thank goodness. Their screen is split neatly between the lecture notes and the Black Friday sales. Because obviously, you can’t be expected to focus on the political philosophy of the Enlightenment when Zara has 30 per cent off.

A cheeky scroll during the section of the lecture that’s just re-explaining the reading you already did never hurt anyone. At least that’s what you tell yourself.

4. The person on ChatGPT

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You hear frantic typing coming from somewhere nearby and internally roll your eyes. Another academic weapon, presumably. But then you catch a glimpse of their screen. It’s on ChatGPT. They’re asking it to explain the concept on the slide “simply”.

Then “even more simply”. Then “as if explaining it to someone with no prior knowledge”. Eventually, you realise they’re three follow-up questions deep into asking AI to explain a sentence that was already pretty straightforward. Suddenly, you don’t feel so clueless after all.

5. The hungover person

It’s 9 am on a Thursday, a rough time for a lecture. It certainly looks like a rough time for the captain of the university hockey team, who has slouched into their seat wearing sunglasses, a hood pulled over their head and clutching a coffee with an extra shot.

There’s no note-taking. There’s barely any eye contact with the lecturer. But, honestly, you have to applaud the commitment to actually turning up. We’ve all been there: Overdoing a Wednesday night just slightly, only to wake up on Thursday morning and deeply regret every decision that led you there.

6. The person playing Clash of Clans

A step down from the hungover student is the person who is somehow playing Clash of Clans. They’re slouched so far down in their chair that they’re practically horizontal, manspreading across half the row and completely engrossed in whatever is happening on their phone.

Which raises the obvious question: Why did you get up at 8 am just to do this? Still, you have to admire the confidence. They’d better hope the lecturer doesn’t make one of those passive-aggressive remarks about concentration.

7. The person who walks in 10 minutes before the end

Your stomach is rumbling, and you’re increasingly conscious of the fact that you haven’t eaten breakfast. You check your watch. Thank goodness. Only ten minutes left. Then the door opens. A late, late arrival. You watch as someone quietly shuffles in, surveys the room and tries to find a seat without making eye contact with anyone.

And you can’t help but wonder: What is the point? You may as well have stayed in bed rather than arrive for the final two slides of a lecture that barely make sense to those of us who have been here since the beginning.

8. The no-show

And finally, we have the ghost. You saw them in the first lecture of term. Maybe you even sat next to them. You exchanged the obligatory “Have you done the reading?” and assumed you’d be seeing them regularly for the next three years. You never see them again. Maybe they dropped out. Maybe they changed courses. Maybe they’re still enrolled and simply haven’t left their bedroom since September. You’ll never know. In all likelihood, they went into the first week of term with a new year, new me attitude and fell flat on their face by Tuesday. Let’s face it – we’ve all been there.

Whether you’ve encountered one of these archetypes or, perhaps slightly more worryingly, realised that you are one of them, we wish you the best of luck for the academic year ahead. Here’s to academic weaponry, questionable attendance and surviving another year of university.

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