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Эта студентка — жуткая соня, а тот парень — просто тихоня.

Эта студентка — жуткая соня, а тот парень — просто тихоня.
This student is a terrible sleepyhead, and that guy is just a quiet person.
From Lesson 409:Common gender nouns·Russian

Questions & Answers about Эта студентка — жуткая соня, а тот парень — просто тихоня.

Both соня and тихоня end in -я, which usually marks feminine nouns. Why can тихоня be used for парень (a guy)?
These words belong to a special group called common gender nouns (общий род). They typically end in -а or -я but can be either masculine or feminine depending on who they refer to. Since студентка is female, соня acts as a feminine noun here. Because парень is male, тихоня acts as a masculine noun.
If we added an adjective before тихоня to describe the guy (like "a real quiet person"), what gender would it take?
It would be masculine to match the biological sex of the person being described, so you would say настоящий тихоня (a real quiet guy). Even though the noun itself ends in -я, grammatical agreement for common gender nouns strictly follows the actual gender of the person.
How would the first clause change if we were talking about a male student instead of студентка?
You would change the subject to masculine (этот студент) and the adjective modifying соня to masculine as well: Этот студент — жуткий соня. Notice that the noun соня itself does not change its spelling at all.
Doesn't жуткая usually mean "creepy" or "terrifying"? Why is it used with соня?
While its direct meaning is indeed "creepy" or "terrible", in casual Russian жуткий is very often used as an emotional intensifier, much like saying "an awful lot" or "a terrible mess" in English. Here, жуткая соня just means someone who sleeps a very large amount.
Why do we need the em dashes (—) before жуткая соня and просто тихоня?
The dash acts as the verb "to be" (is/are) in the present tense, which is normally omitted in Russian. A dash is strictly required here because both the subjects (студентка, парень) and the predicates they are being equated to (соня, тихоня) are nouns in the nominative case.

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