Yearly influx of death reminders keeping postgrads on their toes
Thesis submissions spike as God's unyielding clock ticks round another terrifying year.
Postgraduate research output has risen 40% since the beginning of October, when the university’s now-traditional influx of tiny little reminders of death arrived to provide campus’s less well-built conference accommodation with ballast for the windy season ahead.
Driven to Cov by the parents they still talk to, the so-called “freshers” are encouraged to distribute themselves evenly across campus, and through their wide-eyed desire to engage with the world around them, remind everyone in the research community of exactly how much they’ve lost.
With their healthy livers and good posture, the youths throw into sharp contrast the jaundiced and wraith-like form of the final year PhD student, often seen scowling at building sites and research grids which now block historic routes through campus that the new students can barely imagine.
As Chemistry PhD student Jennifer Oldsham recalled for the Hoar, “Being confronted by someone who is unmistakably much younger than me but still apparently an adult has really made me want to finish my thesis before I slide unwittingly into the grave.”
A fresher was invited to offer an opinion, but he was too busy playing Pokemon Go dressed as a clown as he slid around campus on his skateboard, which is cool again.
The policy of inviting what are essentially children onto campus to scare everyone into working harder before they die was introduced by former Vice Chancellor Nigel Thrift, who is someone people used to care about.