Seven type of people you’re bound to meet in the Edinburgh Uni library this exam season

If there was any time for characters to appear in the library, the time is now. Whilst exam season might not bring out the best in us, it certainly brings out the unusual. Here are the top hits of students you will lock eyes with while staring into space for 20 minutes.

1. The locked in headphone bro

Big, expensive-looking headphones and a penchant for techno music. These are the ones who listen to electronic noise to get them in the zone and turn their music up so loud that we can hear the tinny sounds five desks away. It’s like being in a never-ending oompa loompa rave where the music is distorted and thin, but still annoyingly audible. I understand that you feel most focussed when you are simulating a night in Berghain but please turn down the techno before I pitch myself over the desk and do it for you.

2. The deadline warriors

These are the troopers fighting an academic war with a deadline looming imminently. Their desk is a wasteland of monster cans and meal deal remnants after pulling a 12 or 13 hour shift in the library. They haven’t been home in days and their flatmates are thinking of turning their room into a yoga studio. These people will also often audibly sigh and stretch, staring at their screen with a furrowed brow. Check-in on these people if you see them struggling, it’s a tough time of the year.

A balanced meal?

3. The person who has never heard of whispering

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While some people are mounting an academic comeback, these people are mounting their social debut, chatting with their friends over their laptops. If you are sat next to one of these people then congratulations. You have just become the proud owner of a bunch of secret information regarding someone’s flat drama! Unfortunately, this will be completely useless and irritating because it is so distracting.

A pretty view is the best excuse for procrastination.

4. The Fashionista’s

Stress who? These people are either incredibly chill or just deal with their stress by dressing up. They inject a much-needed sense of glamour into the dreary winter exam period by strutting through the library in their gorgeous outfits. If life is the exam then they show up ready and slaying.

5. The Ghost

Some say they only come out at night, or that they’re a ploy made up by Big Desk to get the University to buy more desks in the overfilled library. Either way, you will never see these students, but they will rob you of a desk with nothing but a mouldy banana, two books and a water bottle holding their place. I’ve seen desks stay like this the whole day while their spectral occupants remain mysteriously absent.

6. The Early bird intelligent icons.

The opposite of the ghost. I believe these people were sitting in the library before it was even around, I like to imagine that they just built it around them. From sunup to sunset these people will be quietly grinding away and working hard. They know what they came to do and will do it without ruffling a feather – calm, composed and confident, these students remind us all to get our act together.

This image makes me shudder.

7. Those who should have stayed at home

I once watched a man spend the whole day at the desk in front of me watching Friends. Occasionally pausing to log into his academic portal, write a few notes and fill his water bottle, I don’t think anything productive was achieved that day. These are the types of students who should have just stayed at home because the amount of work they do is not enough to justify their claiming a seat at the library. But hey, they do make me feel like an academic weapon by comparison.