Which personality trait is each degree hoping to defrost for after lockdown?

The more TikTok-literate of you might be familiar with a trend that has been gradually cultivated on the app, involving the sound made by a microwave and users on the app revolving on the spot, imitating the movement made by a plate of food being defrosted.

Will anyone ever possess the linguistic talent to adequately describe a TikTok trend to those who haven’t seen it? So for those of you who don’t waste away their day scrolling through TikTok, here’s an example:

@heathercallaghanThis is a joke and my friends are very cool #fyp #heygirly

♬ Microwave – Prime Sound

Now that your collective minds have been blown, here’s which personality trait a variety of degree subjects will be soon looking to defrost. Did you ask? No. Am I going to tell you? Absolutely.

Criminology

An aspect of a criminology degree that’s always been bemusing is the way in which notes are taken. Many of these students have intricately crafted immaculate lecture notes, with artisanal mind maps garnished with a rainbow of highlighters, so aesthetically pleasing that you might for once want to do some revision.

The issue here is, that in a degree that studies crime, it will come as no surprise that you will have to write about some fairly nasty stuff. Therefore it might look a bit jarring when words such as “murder” and “torture” are scribed in sparkly pen, accentuated with a pastel highlighter.

Psychology

The long-suffering psychology student has often had to compartmentalise their own issues; having the responsibility of studying the brain has meant that friends and flatmates of psychologists have come to them expectantly, assuming that their set of skills will enable them to diagnose and fix any mental issues their prospective patient might be having.

This might be quite disconcerting for the psychology student expected to wade through the murky and messed-up mind that the average Lancaster student possesses, but what’s even more irksome is that they will often have to hold it together themselves, so as to appear as a fully-functioning psych student. The commonly-told joke is that if a psychology student is feeling down, they should simply consult their notes, but more often than not, hastily scribbled down content copied from a PowerPoint doesn’t quite cover it.

Hopefully when restrictions are loosened and you don’t have to spend 24/7 holed up with your flatmates, this defrosting will subside but for now it remains quite prominent.

Politics

Politics students on the whole live to argue. It forms a key component of their degree and likely their future jobs. Whether it’s about trivial matters, such as which is the best electoral system, or more pressing issues like whether a Jaffa Cake is a biscuit or not, it’s an argument nonetheless which politics students must win.

Soon enough we will all be back in in-person seminars, which were in the past a goldmine for battles of political wit; sparks were sure to fly when the alternative socialist girl and trust fund Tory boy raised their hands at the same time. Therefore it won’t be long before the arena reopens so vast swathes of PPR students will be defrosting their argumentative nature, ready to do battle in an environment that isn’t a Teams call.

Medicine

Similarly to the psychology student, the permanently-busy practitioner of medicine will often be the go-to in the flat when drunken debauchery goes awry. As soon as someone takes a tumble in a vodka-addled state, all eyes turn to the would-be doctor. Never mind that they spend virtually all of their waking hours learning how to cure ailments and treat injuries, they must be only person qualified to put a plaster on a cut sustained by their fallen flatmate.

At least, as they glumly place this personality trait in the microwave, the medical student can console themselves with the fact that this is all good practice for later in life.

Law

Law students are constantly plagued by a mountain of work, attests to regularly having to work 60 hour weeks and probably have a consistent cocktail of Monster, Red Bull and Relentless coursing through their veins.

While some might argue that being tired isn’t a personality trait, the sheer aura of exhaustion that emanates from the majority of those learning from the law school is so strong that it becomes a personality in its own right. We hope you all get some rest over Easter.

English Lit

The English Lit students may not be thankful of a reminder of this particular app, as Vine did to the last generation, TikTok has pulverised the attention span of many a student and the English Lit students will feel the ramifications of this worse than most. Attempting to read an archaic, hefty book by a novelist that died 150 years ago and was likely a racist is probably a herculean task when TikTok has left you instead thinking about “19 dollar Fortnite Cards”.

It would be far simpler if the syllabus consisted of a critical analysis of the best TikToks, as there’s only so much time you can spend dissecting a 15 second clip.

Languages

For languages students, there always seems to be a lot of talk about Britain leaving the European Union, namely the collapse of the Erasmus scheme, a study abroad scheme that was a strong incentive for many students to study a language degree.

Regrettably, this trait will soon defrost as while most people’s degree will improve as restrictions become less severe, this problem is a byproduct of Brexit and not the coronavirus so even in a normal year, studying under this scheme wouldn’t be an option.

Maybe another spin in the microwave will make the pain go away.

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