How to cope with your mid-degree crisis

It seems like yesterday you were an eager fresher waving goodbye to your parents and hello to freedom, but in the blink of an eye you’re halfway through second year.

Where did it all go? You can’t remember half of it — but that’s because you spent too long at the Raz.

All of a sudden you’re faced with reading you can’t avoid, exams you can’t afford to fail, and absolutely no sense of direction in life. Why are we even here? Luckily, The Tab is here to ensure that if you can’t fight your woes, you can at least embrace them fully.

Trawl through the internet looking for irrelevant jobs

Mum, Dad, I’m doing MMA

Do you really want to be a City banker? Is it really worth doing all this maths? Veterinary medicine sounds fancy, but wouldn’t it be fun to relive your gap yaaah, training elephants in Peru? What can you even do with a History degree, anyway?

Searching for irrelevant and obscure jobs is a great way to spend your time — and much more productive than essential reading. So what if it turns out that after all these years in labs and libraries, what you really want is to become a golf ball diver or join the Clergy? Of course you never actually leave your degree — but you do spend a lot of time looking for holidays to book with your imaginary salary.

Buy an indoor plant. Name it.

Say “Aloe” to Vera

Now you’ve discovered that you’re far too edgy and free-spirited for your degree, you need something pointless to waste your loan on. So obviously you need to buy an indoor plant. Call it boho décor. How original. You’re an adult now, and what better way to show it than to nurture a life? Tasha from secondary school already has a baby — you have a Peace Lily and a Snakeplant.

Kill an indoor plant

Face it: you’re not a fully functioning adult

But leave it on the windowsill to linger, like the dying embers of your dreams.

Share inspirational quotes on Facebook

Circa Juicy, 2016

Disguise your mid-degree crisis with quotes from the greats — Buddha, Gandhi, Marilyn Monroe, Justin Bieber. Everyone will lap it up, because only people who really have their lives together can photoshop “live your dreams” onto a cloudy sky. Tearing out your hair over a presentation on the history of democracy? Ask yourself: what would Plato do? And then share a made-up quote from One Direction. Even better — if you’re feeling really inspirational, vandalise some nightclub toilets with your own words of wisdom. This way, second-years-in-crisis will benefit from your genius for years to come. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. 

Drink in the library

Stay classy, Liverpool

This is the final stage of your mid-degree crisis: the ultimate sign of a person who is way past caring. Like a middle-aged man who wanders the streets, unshaven, smelling of whisky, you’re in the library at 11pm on the night before an exam with a flask of coffee, a six pack of Kopparberg and a deadened face. You’re writing out Psychology flashcards. One of them says “alcohol impedes memory function”. You literally don’t care. For an added edge, give up completely and go to Garlands on the night before an exam. What do you mean, I’m not a fresher? “I do what I want”, you slur. You wake up covered in your own sick in Kensington. Why are you in Kensington? You wander down to uni and nail a solid Third in that exam. Life doesn’t get much better than this.

Document it online

Let’s be honest — nothing says “mid degree crisis” like taking a selfie with your hip flask in the SJ. But all of this will come in handy when your Arts degree inevitably fails you and a few pictures of your dead-plant-strewn life are all you have left to sell. Plus, what’s uni without a crisis or two? “You are far from the end of your journey” — Buddha.