Deadline season is here, which means thousands of Glasgow students are sitting in libraries, bedrooms, cafés and badly-heated flats pretending they definitely have everything under control.
But nothing exposes you faster than your referencing style. Not your degree. Not your attendance record. Not even your meal-deal loyalty.
Your bibliography is your psychological profile. And also, frankly, a dead giveaway for which Glasgow uni you attend.
Let’s break down the chaos.
Harvard: The Glasgow Uni student clinging to life
Harvard is the UofG classic: Simple in theory, emotionally destructive in practice.
If you’re at UofG, this is the hill you die on. You’re guaranteed to be working in the library until 1am, you’re using CiteThisForMe even though you know it makes mistakes, and you’re crying when your bibliography shifts two millimetres to the left.
Your mental state: Living off cold Pret coffee and blind optimism.
Your uni: UofG, obviously — and maybe Glasgow City College if you’re on an essay-heavy course and learning referencing from TikTok.
APA: The Strath STEM/psych student who has completely lost feeling
If you’re at Strath and study literally anything with numbers, labs or the word “behaviour,” congratulations: You’re stuck with APA.
APA users seem calm but that’s just resignation.
Strath students using APA regularly have a breakdown over “retrieval dates”, know what DOI means (massive red flag), and format headings like their life depends on it.
Your mental state: Emotionally numb but somehow productive.
Your uni: Strathclyde (especially psych & engineering).
Also occasionally Caledonian — the business students know this pain.
MLA: The Cali or City College humanities student with a tote bag collection
If you see MLA, you know this person studies English lit, film, media or something personal-statement-coded. Their laptop has stickers. Their aesthetic is “sad café student.”
You probably say things like: “This quote REALLY hits…”, “Actually the translation changes the meaning,” and “Sorry, I just prefer serif fonts.”
Your mental state: Romanticising your breakdown with lo-fi music.
Your uni: Mostly Cali Creative Industries and a sprinkling of City College writers.
Chicago: The GSA student who terrifies everyone
Chicago referencing is a lifestyle. If you use it, you’re either a GSA student who finds chaos inspiring or a history student who genuinely enjoys footnotes.
Signs you’re a Chicago user: You’ve chosen form over sanity; you write 500 words of footnotes for a 2,000-word essay; you correct people’s em-dashes (seek help); and your wardrobe is exclusively black.
Your mental state: Scarily organised yet deeply unhinged.
Your uni: GSA or UofG creative arts and industries. No in-between.
MHRA: The dissertation-era UofG humanities student who hasn’t slept
No one uses MHRA unless they’ve been forced by a dissertation handbook.
You drink specialty coffees “for concentration”, talk about “primary sources” too much, have opened Word’s footnote settings more than Instagram, and haven’t been outside in days.
Your mental state: Ghost-like and close to snapping.
Your uni: UofG, Strath, and sometimes Caledonian final years.
OSCOLA: The law student at Strath who radiates aggression
If your bibliography looks like a legal document, you’re a law student — and in Glasgow, that usually means Strathclyde.
Classic behaviours include silently judging everyone’s referencing, treating cases like they’re celebrity gossip, saying “It’s actually not that bad” with dead eyes, and considering suing CiteThisForMe on principle.
Your mental state: Stressed, caffeinated, mildly dangerous.
Your uni: Strath Law School, possibly one rogue UofG postgrad.
Vancouver: The med/health student at Caledonian or Glasgow Uni who no longer feels emotions
If you’re referencing with numbers instead of names, you’re either a medic or a health sciences student — which explains everything.
You’re awake at 6am by force, you don’t have time to understand why this style exists, you accept chaos as your default, and you couldn’t name a single author you cited.
Your mental state: exhausted but unstoppable.
Your uni: Caledonian (nursing/optometry/etc) or UofG Medicine.
City College wildcard styles – whatever your lecturer downloaded off Google
City College students are the freest spirits because your lecturers all pick different referencing styles and none of them agree.
You might be using:
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Harvard (chaotic version)
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MLA (but with wrong commas)
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APA (with no spacing)
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Something allegedly called “the department style”
Your mental state: You’re trying your best and honestly that’s enough.
Your uni: Glasgow City College, living by vibes.
