What your 3am snack choice says about your academic life

It’s true – crunchy carbs are actually the key to academic success

7 hours ago

Scavenging around your cupboard at the crack of dawn for the least mouldy packet of biscuits? Be it fuel for that late-night library session, or something to cleanse your palette after yet another messy POP! you can surprisingly tell a lot about someones’ relationship with their degree from their choice of late night snack. Without further ado, here is a list of late-night snacks and what types of students are choosing them.

Carrots and hummus

You are here to complete your assignments at maximum productivity, while keeping your brain healthy and awake. Finishing off that third ten hour library shift of the week, these type of snackers are most definitely finance students who munch on carrots with such efficiency, even rabbits think it’s intense. Finance students believe their health and mind are of the utmost importance and thus look after themselves with an intensity almost as vigorous as their commitment to wearing quarter zip fleeces.

A rotisserie chicken

There’s always that one gym bro in every first year flat, who insists that cooking an entire gammon or rotisserie chicken a week is the perfect meal prep plan and actually incredibly healthy. Unfortunately, this type of snacker does not have much of an academic life, as they spend more time at the gym and meal prepping than at lectures. Walking in on someone hunched over their seventh tupperware box of an entire chicken and a portion of rice (which they insist has been seasoned with plenty of salt) after a night out is not exactly the best surprise, especially when you’re just trying to get to your bread in the fridge.

Living a five minute walk from Sicilian’s was incredibly beneficial for my post-midnight cravings

Wotsits or any kind of messy crisps

My deepest condolences for those who choose to snack on Wotsits or any other kind of distinctively messy savoury snack. Having reached their wit’s end, these crisp indulgers are most likely STEM students who have just about given up on their research paper: The only sweet release being the satisfaction of licking crumbs off their fingers as they accept their fate of clicking “Submit”. A crap paper is still a paper, after all.

Ice cream/sweets

Wrapped up in a blanket at your desk at home, barely able to keep your eyes open while furiously typing away at that essay which you’ve had months to write: An image that I am unfortunately all too familiar with. In hopes of kickstarting their brain to produce an extra thousand words of academic fantasticness, late night panic essay writers are most definitely ice cream or sweet snackers. Simultaneously scooping from a day-old tub of Ben & Jerry’s and calculating how much of an essay ChatGPT could, in theory, write without getting caught, are common signs of a last-minute student who continues to convince themselves that the next one will be different, and they’ll start planning weeks in advance. Speaking from personal experience, this, of course, never happens.

Post-club crunchies and I are the most stable relationship I’ve ever had xxx

Bread

Yes, just plain bread. An excellent choice of snack. There is nothing my taste buds enjoy more than a crunchy yet fluffy piece of thick sourdough bread after an especially heavy night out. Bread snackers are most likely first year humanities or arts students who have just realised this year doesn’t actually count towards their degree and so decide to truly be the silly fresher everyone labels them as. I will admit I was very much a silly fresher and would always prepare myself a fresh loaf before heading out to circle or Kasbah to indulge in after – my degree attendance might have dropped, but my carbohydrate intake most definitely did not.

Pure carbs will definitely improve my academic motivation!

Cheese and crackers

Your academic life may be flourishing if this is your snack of choice, however your social life is most likely not. Someones’ cheese choice also speaks volumes about them as a person. I love a good bit of brie on a nice cracker as much as the next person, but knowing you are lactose intolerant and inhaling a pungent Roquefort in your kitchen or library creates not only a hostile work environment, but a nasty experience for anyone visiting the toilet after you’ve been.

A Tesco meal deal with a Monster

Either a guilt-ridden finalist, or a bit too eager first year, this lethal combo of a soggy sandwich and the sweet nectar of pure caffeine will be sure to charge anyones’ last drops of motivation into an eye-twitching, shaky fingered couple of hours of speed typing and the occasional breakdown.