What if you were reading this article… in an email? Sign up to the VICE Australia newsletter Oh shit! Welcome to university. I'm sure you're having a very good time and working quite hard and making loads of wonderful new friends who you really properly connect with because it's the time of our lives when it all starts coming together! Alternatively, you aren't having particularly that much fun and are surrounded by people attempting to wear their entire personalities on their bodies at all times! That's cool too! Here's a quick guide to who you are likely to meet in the next three to seven years. Or who you may want to avoid—whatever man, it's all up to you!

Do he attend this university? Is he enrolled in, say, anything at all? Extremely difficult to confirm because you've never seen him inside a building on campus. He is always just outside, smoking, like, fancy cigarettes. Know what I mean? There he is, adjacent to the door—a door he may have never walked in—wearing so much VLONE. He always has the latest, largest Samsung Galaxy. It is enormous. He is only using it to DM people for collabs, and comment NIL on Off White hoodies in closed FB buy-and-sell groups.

He's a philosophy student, but he'd say he's more "a student of Philosophy." Also a die-hard Labor voter who thinks the party just needs to get back to the Hawke days. Is he wearing RM Williams? No, I believe those are Blundstones, and definitely Birkenstocks in the summer. You better believe he loves Neil Finn. Slam poet? Maybe! He's certainly writing some type of "fiction" somewhere (which is absolutely not fictional, and is definitely about a very real human girl he dated in high school and still insists on referencing in extremely specific, personal detail!!) This guy uses that gritty, grainy fluoride-free toothpaste—you know, the one that is basically just swilling bi-carb soda? He loves it! He also rides his bike sitting up with his arms resting by his side—somehow never touching the handle bars. He may have ridden to uni at 9 AM, but he will still have one leg of his pants tucked into his sock at 3 PM. Also smokes WEED everyone!! Is there anyone that hasn't heard that he smokes WEED yet? Because he does!! No big deal!!!

Private school alum who graduated, travelled, then settled into a sharehouse with his three best childhood mates and promptly discovered something called "Boiler Room." Now there are turntables and a real nice mixer on the dining room table of said sharehouse, and they all just have a "chill mix" every now and then. He doesn't imagine you'll know about things like "Detroit Techno" or a "BPM" if you're a chick, unless you happen to be a very famous one who has actually played Boiler Room. He think all this constitutes good taste.

Yes. Yes she was.

She has small, small, miniature, so-tiny-you-will-most-certainly-need-a-microscope-to-see-it fringe. She draws comics that teach you lessons about, like, politics and morality and respect. Would you like to know her Twitter bio? Here it is: "Political BeliefsSexual OrientationDietary HabitsStar SignFavourite Animal"

This girl is alternative in a Ghost World way, and won't let you forget it. She's basically Taylor Swift stuck singing that "She's cheer captain but I am a t-shirt" line forever and ever. She honestly thinks Deadpool is the best movie of all time, and that girls that don't read BOOKS and wear CONS are STUPID. All her friends are dudes—the kind of really weedy, spindly men who wear motorcycle jackets inside and smoke cigarettes in a particularly uncomfortable way, holding them basically like the Beatles did. Also, they wear dress shoes with jeans… Grey wash jeans.

What do they study? Probably art because whenever you see them they have have a little bit of paint on their hands. Their hands are quite beautiful, by the way. The slender sort, like pianist's hands. You know 'em, delicate but tanned. Everyone loves this person, including you and all of your teachers. If only they were in yours or somebody's league, but they are not and they never will be so FORGET IT.

This man speaks freely and often about being a Feminist and an Ally to appear more Woke, however, the way he talks about people and things makes it starkly obvious he doesn't give a shit about anyone except himself. He raises his hand for everything. If you answer a question wrong, he will roll his eyes so aggressively you will hear it. Like, a squelching noise. His backpack sits very high on his back, and his shoes are New Balance, the orthopaedic kind. Ever wonder who would want sneakers in brown? This guy. He reads Tolstoy up reaaaal high so everyone can see the cover. He's way too active on Twitter for someone who's an expert in approximately nothing, except being shite. He might want to be poly, but nobody wants to be poly with him.

Friend's streetwear brand! Some record label! Language warning sticker they peeled off a Korn CD? You gotta show everyone you're into COOL shit!!! When I was at uni this guy had a Ratking sticker on his laptop and everyone considered him the coolest boy in the damn thing. Also because he was like six-foot-five.

The thing here is, this mature age student is literally the coolest fucking person in this godforsaken place. They don't speak unless spoken to, they hold doors open for people, and they don't scream or run or vape or talk about dumb shit that happened on the internet the night before. They make nice jokes and they know about history and they're clean and chill and relaxed and they don't say lit or fam and why can't everyone be like this?

In my experience, university is a waste of time, really. Sure, the degree holds a sort of ceremonial value, and at some point down the line, it might get you selected for a job over someone equally qualified that does not have a degree, but that is really it (unless you want to be a neurosurgeon or an astrophysicist—in which case, please continue. We need more of you and less of me). Otherwise, you don't actually need to be here at all. And yet you are. Because you need to have, at the very least, a place to be by midday. It staves off your depression, which would otherwise quickly overrun your life. That's it. That's really it. You would be surprised how many people have enrolled for the exact same reason.