The much awaited season is finally here! At NUST, students are almost through with their last exams and are bidding their farewells, as they embark onto their semester breaks. While the exam week hurriedly passes us by, none of the exam days are anywhere as eventful as the very last one. This is the day you’ll find the whole University resounding with an uncanny commotion, friends making resolutions of staying in touch and the hostel’s corridors flooded with amass of suitcases on the floor. Let’s have a look at the six types of people you’ll find in NUST on such a momentous day:

1. The group of friends dressed up for their post exam hangout

Known around the town for their habitual parties- which they broadcast every Friday from their Snapchat stories- this is the most jovial tribe of people you’ll find at the campus on this day! From fussing over how to split their cab fares, to voting on where to get their dessert from, these people hardly manage to sit through the dreadful exam itself. The moment the exam halls open, as the paper commences, these people vanish off instantly, only to be later found on Instagram as they upload their Frappuccino clicks with hashtags #blessed.

2. The person already dreaming of their 16-hour nap they’ll take

This is probably the person who functioned the entire week on 2 hours of sleep. They descend into the last paper therefore, as they have already thrown in the towel. Dressed in yoga pants and a hoodie that they haven’t changed for what seems like an eternity, they clutch dearly onto their survival packs of caffeine loaded cups of coffee or tea, that they fetch from the Student Concordias even at this early hour of 08:00 A.M., and can only talk about how they’ll sleep the minute they reach home. Beware! These are the people who might even risk their snapchat streaks just for the sake of their sleep, so be sure to remind them in time.

3. That one Hostelite who has their plane tickets and shopping lists pinned onto their minds

This the homesick Walaiti friend of your group, who paid for their tickets in weeks advance just so they could leave off for the airport at the earliest hour, conveniently ditching your squad’s plan of a hangout yet again. With their minds preoccupied by using every principle ever taught in a Calculus class or Algebra, they try to plan the swiftest way of doing a last minute packing ritual, while also managing just enough time to collect gifts for the whole family and arrive at the airport in time for their flight. Most frequently, they are last seen in the public eye buying bulks of boxes of Chilli Milli© and Cocomo© for their younger siblings, and struggling to pronounce to the shop keepers some weird masala concoctions which their parents had explicitly demanded from them, when they come back.

4. Introverted friends who ditch all party plans to snuggle up at home instead

Such members of your squad can only talk about their hype for the new Netflix show they’ll binge watch, or their meticulously long list of books they have to catch up on. If you ask this person what’s on his/her to-do lists are for the holidays, all you’ll get to hear is how they plan to binge watch Peaky Blinders, or read another one of some John Green’s books that they had raved about the entire semester. It’s not that they don’t like the idea of your catching up on coffee plan, but they’d rather do it while roasting their marshmallows at home over the soothing warmth of their lounge’s heater.

5. That one friend who already can’t resist talking of their trip abroad

These are the social media stars of your class, who probably show up on the last exam day dressed in bomber jackets and Vans. For them, the day is less about taking the final exam and more about getting to meet their squads one last time, before they fly off to foreign lands. You’ll find such people gathered at the student centers for their last rounds of having NUST’s infamous chilled shakes while socializing with their incredulously expanded social circles as a farewell gathering.

6. The friend who has their winter work cut out for them because of NIMUN 2019

This person belongs to those few people you’d meet at the campus who rejoice at getting to finally be relieved by the papers at long last, but only so that they could hustle with renewed vigor for the most renowned event in town. Probably the only MUN where the stakes are truly high, as the whole University sets off to set new records each year. It’ll be a rare sight to even spot them around you after the last exam, as they almost instantly pounce off into their hectic work routines.

Lastly, no matter what category you find yourself belonging to, or if yours is a different case, there is perhaps one uniting spirit that runs through us all: the bittersweet feeling of having to say goodbye to the much beloved life at NUST, even if only for a little while. It is the realization of having to take a break from meeting up with your squad every day at the Central Library, or the numerous student cafes sprawled across NUST, that just makes these final moments of the semester especially hard; it can be observed as an open secret in the joyful yet teary eyed goodbyes you make to your room mates and friends, as you feel the happiness of finally getting to see your family again, but the sorrow of not seeing the other.