Okay, so I got this idea to mess around with “academia nicknames” and make a crossword puzzle out of it. I thought it’d be a fun little project, and honestly, I was kind of bored.
First, I brainstormed a bunch of nicknames. You know, the ones you hear thrown around campus – “The Prof,” “Dr. Doom,” “The Terminator” (for that one super strict grader), stuff like that. I jotted them all down on a piece of scrap paper. I must have had, like, twenty of these things.
Then, I tried to figure out how to fit them together. This was way harder than I thought! I started with a blank crossword grid I found (just printed one off, nothing fancy). I tried fitting in the longer nicknames first, then filling in the gaps with the shorter ones. It was like a really frustrating game of Tetris.
- “The Oracle” (for the one who knows everything) – that was a long one, so I put that across the top.
- “Lab Rat” – That fit nicely down the side.
- “The Ghost” (the one who never shows up to class) – Found a spot in the Middle.
I spent a good hour just shuffling these things around, erasing, rewriting, and generally getting more and more annoyed. My scrap paper was a total mess of scribbles and crossed-out words. I might had to grab a few new papers.
After a lot of trial and error, I finally managed to get a decent-looking grid. It wasn’t perfect, but hey, it worked! Most of the nicknames interlocked, and I only had a couple of blank spaces I couldn’t fill.
Next, I wrote out the clues. This was actually kind of fun. I tried to make them clever, but not too difficult. For example:
- For “The Prof,” I wrote something like: “Generic title for a teacher, duh.”
- “Dr. Doom” got: “You’ll fail his class, for sure.”
Finally, I typed the whole thing up to make it look a little neater, I used only my old keyboard. I added a few extra borders and titles and made sure to make it look like a mini crossword. It was a nice finishing touch.
So, yeah, that’s how I made an “academia nickname” crossword. It was a surprisingly challenging little project, but a fun way to kill some time. And who knows, maybe I’ll try to make another one someday – with even more ridiculous nicknames!
