Final year is weird.

Walking around campus you sometimes get a flash of just how many hours you’ve put into the place.

It’s hard not to build connections with the inanimate objects around the place as well as your favourite lecturers/tutors/classmates. That table in the library where you battled a sociology essay the whole day and were there until 11:57pm. That time, and then that other time, and the other time you were lost in the Hunter Building. That time when the sushi bar was giving away the last of their stock at the end of the day, and you had to give up sushi for the rest of the month or risk ruining it forever. Those times you drowned your sorrows and celebrated your successes at the Godfrey Tanner Bar, and marvelled at the fact that after the second schooner the sensation was exactly the same.

You’ll feel the weight of thousands of words buoying you along to that coveted hat and robe.

But beware, the false dawn is always the coldest part of the night. You feel done. Educated. Unbroken, despite all the bending over the last 3 years. But until you get that rolled degree slapped into your sweaty open palm, the university is not finished with you. That light at the end of the tunnel is getting close enough to feel the heat on your face, but you have to watch your step.

By now you’ve probably got your routine down pat. Study times, assignment methods, library navigation, that’s all sorted. The weight of routine, however, can be its own challenge.

I mean, the old compare and contrast essay can lose its savour the 17th time around. You can’t seem to bring yourself to give your assignments that last polish which turns a D into a HD. You know exactly what to do, and you know it will only take an hour. Yet you watch the assignment deadline clock run down, hour after hour and you just can’t bring yourself to touch it any more.

So for your last year, try something new.

Your study path is already (hopefully) set in stone, so find a deep end somewhere else. Investigate the nooks around campus that have become invisible from seeing them too many times. Start with the bike hubs. Ride to uni. Buy NUSA veggie boxes. Attend iLead Plus events. Fulfill your early morning yoga vow. Join a club or society. Become a PASS leader. Take a creative elective. Meditation techniques. Carpool through Liftango. Tanner Tuesdays. Enjoy the open air at Monday Movies by Moonlight. Fight against the instinct to be blasé.

Who knows, you might enjoy yourself so much you’ll go for another lap.