Ninety per cent of graduating Arts students “just didn’t think this far ahead, honestly”, new Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows.

Survey respondent Lilly Fairweather, a 2017 University of Melbourne Arts graduate, has finally succumbed to a long-suppressed existential crisis after submitting her final ever university essay.

“What now?” she said, genuinely unsure.

“Nothing in my philosophy major prepared me for this moment. I have been critically analysing, deconstructing, historicising and contextualising the discursively constructed concept of ‘life’ for three years now, yet I still don’t know what I’m doing with my own.”

Fairweather is just one of many University of Melbourne students experiencing graduation anxiety.

As the 2017 academic year draws to close, third year students are going to desperate lengths to avoid thinking about their future career paths.

Monica ‘Contiki 2k17’ Stewart, for instance, is using her SWOTVAC to plan a European holiday.

“I’m going to have a white Christmas in Paris, just to cool off after my hectic semester juggling captaincy roles in both the University of Melbourne Cheerleading Team and Glee Club,” the Toorak-based, former school captain of Haileybury College said.

“After undertaking a paid internship at my uncle’s boutique PR firm over the winter break, I have earned enough to spend four months in the Northern Hemisphere,” she said.

“Hopefully I can land a job when I get back, preferably as a social media consultant in the Melbourne café scene. I don’t think my uncle has any more menial office tasks I can do.”

First year Commerce student, Geoffrey Spud, on the other hand, is experiencing no such stress, with two full years of study ahead of him.

After a big year transitioning from high school to university life, Spud is just glad his unprecedented workload will soon ease.

“I can’t wait for the end-of-year uni holidays when my life won’t be so ruled by study,” said Spud, who today watched seven episodes of MythBusters Season 12, masturbated twice and viewed 137 Facebook memes, all to avoid studying for his inevitable exams.

“It’s just such a stressful time of year, it will be such a relief to finally put the textbooks away and start living again,” Spud said,  finishing his third packet of Cheezels whilst watching an obscure car-wrecking show on 7mate.

Meanwhile, jaded PhD student, William McGonigal, laughs sardonically at the undergraduate and Master’s students’ existential angst.

“Trust me, once you’re knee deep in an 80,000 word doctoral thesis, you cease to feel any human emotions whatsoever,” he said.

“As far as I can see, I’ll still be writing this thing when my grandchildren are finishing their bachelor’s degrees and I’ve long lost bowel control,” he said. “I don’t even know what the fuck I’m writing about anymore.”

‘Breaking (the) News’ is Farrago’s satire column and is not to be taken seriously.