These are officially the scariest things you can encounter as a Lancaster Uni student

Oh no, it’s the terrifying thought of graduating!

1 year ago

Happy Halloween! Everyone’s favourite spooky day is finally here, but it’s not ghosts and ghouls you should be worried about today. When you’re a Lancs student, spooks and scares lurk around every corner.

From accusations of plagiarism to terrible flatmates, here are all the scariest things you can encounter as a Lancaster Uni student. Viewer discretion is (not) advised.

The Greggs queue reaching the end of WHSmith

What’s worse than getting out of the Underpass and seeing the Greggs queue stretch out into Alex Square? It’s getting out of the Underpass and seeing the line’s gotten so long that some poor soul has had to reorganise the queue along Smith’s so its not in the way of commuting students. Truly terrifying.

Costa running out of ice

Whilst November is literally only a day away, there are still plenty of Lancs students who rely on an iced coffee to kickstart their day. It’s not Costa running out of ice that’s scary, it’s how the customers act when they find out.

The Sugarmouse

The Sugarhouse’s large-headed, rodenty mascot is by far the deadest-looking thing to ever roam campus, and I’ve seen the rugby team on a Thursday morning.

A full bus

A scare that’s common to most Lancaster students at the moment, is there anything that makes your heart sink more than the bus you’ve been waiting for for ages turning up full?

Waving back at someone from across Alex Square and then realising they weren’t waving at you at all

This could actually be the worst feeling in the world. There’s a whole list of horror monsters I’d prefer to face than facing the baffled-looking stranger who was just trying to say hi to their friend from LU Craft Society.

Having to boot someone out of your group study space

Also needlessly embarrassing, having to mumble to some randos that you’ve booked the study pod out is sooooo nerve-wracking. What if they just say no? What are you going to do then?

Bowland Annexe

We think it’s haunted. The University thinks it’s an art studio. I think it’s time we asked Bowland Annexe what it wants to be.

Your flatmate who’s left their half-eaten takeaway on the side all week

Aside from it being a waste of a perfectly good Chinese, your flatmate’s dinner from last Tuesday has started to look a little like a swamp monster. You can’t clean it up in case they expect you to do it every time. They won’t clean it up until it grows legs and starts hunting people down. Then it’ll be too late for us all.

Your landlord letting you know people are coming to look at the house when your room looks like shit

In fact, this applies to house viewings in general. Nobody wants strangers poking around their room, and you don’t want to feel like you’re intruding on someone’s personal space when you’re looking at potential houses. Maybe we should all just bite the bullet and sign for houses without looking at them. It’ll save us all the embarrassment and I’m sure we’ll be fine putting up with haunted cupboards and dodgy washing machines for a year.

Getting called on in a seminar when you haven’t done the reading

Literally nothing is scarier than this. The lecturer could call on anyone else, including three people with their hands so high up in the air they could high-five Jesus if they just stretched a little higher, but they still call on you. It was just Halloween weekend, when would I have had the chance to read?

A plagiarism score of 50 per cent on Turnitin

You swear your work is completely original, so why is the stupid computer telling you that you’ve nicked half of it from a paper published in 1956? There’s something scary going on with these plagiarism scores. Maybe the website’s haunted.

A lecture or seminar in Bowland North

The lecture theatres are either too flat or too steep and the seminar rooms are so small it feels like the walls are closing in. Bowland North is full of bad, bad vibes. I’m pretty sure it’s cursed.

The Sugar queue stretching up to Marco’s

This hasn’t been seen for a while, thank God, but there are rare occasions where the queue for the Sugarhouse gets so long that it starts to stretch all the way down the street and over to Marco’s. The scariest part about this is that, by the time you get in, Sugar will close and you’ll have paid a fiver for about twenty minutes of clubbing.

Your mum finding your Sugar photos

It’s all fun and games until your mum WhatsApps you a photo of you, half-conscious at the club, with four VKs in hand. The telltale Sugarhouse logo is emblazoned across the bottom, making you wonder just why your mother follows the Students’ Union club on Facebook.

Finding out your course doesn’t have a reading week

If it were up to us, we’d make sure every course has a reading week. Unfortunately, it is not up to us, so the ever-exclusive half term break remains exclusive.

Getting with someone in Sugar and then finding out they’re a PPE student

I’ve woken up from nightmares about this in a cold sweat. ALWAYS remember to check what your new friend is studying before you kiss them. It’ll only escalate from there.

Those year tens that hang around campus all the time

Yeah, we were all fifteen once, but were we ever that scary? In theory, none of us should be scared of a bunch of kids who’ve barely started their GCSEs, but we are anyway.