First published October 6, 2018.
College memes work because nearly every student meets the same small disasters: group projects where one person does everything, textbooks that cost more than furniture, essays padded to reach a word count, and lectures that start far too early. The twenty posts below were shared widely on Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram and Facebook between roughly 2013 and 2017, and many were later collected by Bored Panda. Each is credited to the account that posted it. Under each one is a short note on the real situation behind the joke and, where it helps, what research says works better.
Read them as recognition rather than rules. Students who commute, work or care for family will see their own version of college in some posts and not in others. If one joke feels a little too true, the notes may offer a practical fix.
Careers, majors and the degree question
Credit: Andrew Rudick Comedy. A comedian describes waiting on a family celebrating a daughter's English degree from NKU (Northern Kentucky University), while he himself holds a master's in English literature. The joke is about the worry that humanities degrees do not lead straight to a matching job. Many graduates in every field work outside their major, especially early on.
Credit: mozzarellasticks4life. A twist on the old saying "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life," which is often attributed to Confucius without any reliable source. Here the twist is that the field you love may not be hiring. It is a good reminder to look at internships and job listings alongside passion when picking a major.
Credit: DoubleclickEB. A photo from a lecture hall shows a student scrolling an article about high-paying jobs for college dropouts during class. It is funny because it is a feeling many students have during a hard week, not a real plan for most of them.
Money: debt, textbooks and the budget life
Credit: wannajoke. Students trudging across a foggy campus look like extras from The Walking Dead, so the caption calls them "The Walking Debt." The pun touches a real issue: about 45 million Americans hold student loans, and the typical federal borrower owed nearly $40,000 in 2023.
Credit: Mars90000000. A stack of chemistry and chemical-engineering textbooks holds up a television, a "$1000 TV stand." Before buying new, check the library reserve desk, used and rental copies, older editions your instructor accepts, and free open textbooks such as those from OpenStax.
Credit: wolfmaggie. A Tumblr user jokes that hackers should leak PDF textbooks instead of celebrity photos. Pirated textbooks are a legal risk, but free and legal open textbooks now cover many introductory courses, so ask your instructor whether one is allowed.
Credit: hufflepenguin. A three-line haiku, with a swear word, complains that textbooks are made of paper and ink, not diamonds. It became one of the most shared complaints about textbook prices on Tumblr.
Credit: WLOLZ. An anonymous social media post jokes that if burglars searched the writer's home for money, they would join the search. It is the classic broke-student joke, and it works for anyone at the end of the month.
Group projects
Credit: immahaveurollin. A pie chart claims that group projects mostly teach you how to do the whole project yourself and how much you dislike other people, with the actual course material a tiny slice. It exaggerates a real problem that researchers call social loafing: people tend to put in less effort when their individual contribution is hard to see.
Credit: lovenightlifegc. A darkly funny wish to have former group partners carry your coffin, "so they can let me down one last time." The joke plays on the double meaning of "let down."
Credit: StudentProblems. Half of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is joined to a child's scribble, the result of "you do one half, I'll do the other." The fix in real life is simple: agree on deadlines, assign named tasks and share drafts early, so problems show up before the night before.
Lectures, studying and assignments
Credit: ColIegeStudent. Four students in a row show the four stages of a morning lecture, from upright and alert to face-down on the desk. Early classes after late nights are a familiar combination for many students.
Credit: alifeoflaughs. "Expectation" shows careful highlighting, and "Reality" shows a man painting a whole page with a brush. Research agrees that highlighting does little on its own. A 2013 review led by John Dunlosky rated highlighting and rereading as low-utility techniques and gave the highest ratings to practice testing and spacing study sessions out over time.
Credit: haleylpm. Attend class and nothing happens; skip one class and, the joke goes, the world changes forever. The real lesson is the reverse: borrow notes and check the course page whenever you miss a session.
Credit: memeirl. A dog walking itself by holding its own lead in its mouth stands in for teaching yourself a subject. When a course is hard to follow, office hours, tutoring centres and study groups are usually free and under-used.
Credit: deanfluence. A can labelled "very young small early peas" is offered as proof of how students pad an essay to reach 500 words. Teachers usually notice padding. Adding a clear example or a source helps more than adding adjectives.
Credit: katbot. Asked for 3,000 to 6,000 words, the student proudly stops at 3,001. It is the mirror image of the peas joke: the minimum becomes the target.
Credit: CollegeEssent. The student writes a polite, carefully proofread email, and the teacher replies with one word "sent from my iPhone." Short replies usually mean a busy inbox, not rudeness, so a clear subject line and one direct question get the fastest answers.
Credit: heart. Asked to "draw a wrong triangle," a student drew a triangle saying something false (a moon-landing conspiracy theory), along with a square. The post says the answer earned four extra-credit points, which shows that some teachers enjoy a clever pun.
Credit: TheOrangeWolf. An online quiz for a co-ed volleyball league reports 18 out of 18 correct answers but says 19 out of 18 are needed to pass. It is a software glitch, and it feels exactly like college bureaucracy on a bad day.
Why these jokes ring true
Most of these posts are about the same thing: effort that seems out of proportion to the reward. Group work feels unfair when contributions are invisible, studying feels pointless when the method does not work, and money worries make every price tag personal. The good news is that many of these problems have known fixes. Spread study sessions out and test yourself. Set group roles in writing. Look for free or cheaper course materials. And use office hours. Share the meme that fits your week, and maybe one of the fixes too.
Sources: posts by the credited creators above, collected by Bored Panda; study-technique research from the Association for Psychological Science; borrower figures from Wikipedia: Student debt in the United States.
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