Crying in the Main Quad was a ‘far cry’ from the FB event

We went to check it out


After all the hype on Facebook for the Crying in the Main Quad event and the daily memes that had been posted, we turned up expecting there to be crowds of people on the floor, sobbing, distraught about missed deadlines, shitty exams and the stress of uni life in general.

Did the security guards come for a good cry too?

But when we got there, the scene was pretty different. Everyone who had turned up was smiling, laughing, taking selfies.

In one case we did actually find a crier, a golden crier in the midst of the crowd.  Omar, a 1st year Natural Science student who said his exam on Friday had gone so badly that he had come here to let all the stress out.

One of the organisers, Alexandra, offered him a tissue and a hand on the shoulder for comfort, model UCL prospectus material to be honest.

The end of term is just so much stress for this guy

We spoke to some of the organisers, Alexandra and Steven who were handing out free tissues (student bargain?) and even managed to snap a selfie in recognition of this special event. We even got to hold the special boxes of tissues. Honoured, mate, absolutely honoured.

Behind the smiles there lies so much pain and stress

Steven said that they expected quite a few people to turn up, as the Facebook event had 2,700 people interested in it. He said he wanted to see lots of UCL students supporting each other through these hard times #UCLSolidarity, but also as just a way to break up a long, tedious Monday.

The really worrying thing is students actually made a Facebook event for this in the first place…