It’s always the worst on Mondays. Every seat, every table, every bright orange ergonomic chair in the university library is taken by 9am, and anyone looking to get a bit of honest-to-goodness study done finds themselves up shit creek.

It’s a ritual that’s beyond enraging to those who’ve experienced it. You know that routine where you go to the fridge for a snack, find nothing there, and return sometime later with lower standards thinking, “maybe I’ll just eat butter”?

Yeah well, imagine that, but instead of snacks, it’s gaggle after gaggle of mouth-breathing duds taking up every last possible receptacle that could be used for study. And they’re NOT studying. They’re nattering about some jack-off fitness blog or streaming some kind of weird video.

In lieu of a public dacking, here’s some savvy and practical things you can do to score a seat in the library, and alternatives if you can’t.

#1 Invade Enemy Territory

Often when people say, “every table is full” what they mean is, “well, there was this five-person table that only had four people using it but I couldn’t sit there because I’d be interrupting or I’d be the odd person out”.

To that I say, social niceties be damned. It’s a dog-eat-dog world so get yours before you get got. Ignore the awkward looks and stifled banter and just plop yourself right down at the table.

Hell, don’t even ask if you can sit down. Just go in wearing some ridiculous Skullcandy headphones with speed-dealer wraparounds just to really ramp up the obliviousness. What are they gonna do, vote to kick you off the table?

#2 Try Studying Outside

Most universities have a number of outdoor tables, benches and general grassy areas that are usually equipped with power outlets. The thing about studying outside, though, is that it either works for you or it doesn’t.

You’re either the kind of person who delights in laying down on the grass, textbooks sprawled out, absorbing lectures and UV rays in equal dose. Or, you’re the sort who starts chain-smoking as soon as you clear five metres of the library and does about 10 minutes of people watching before resigning yourself to the idea of outdoor study, unable to focus on anything but the gathering ants in your butt-crack.

Of course this idea is kaput as soon as the weather turns bad anyway, and that’s when you’re left with one final option.

#3 Study In Your Car

The final indignity. Can’t find a seat in the library? Don’t want to flip through your unit outline in the blazing sun? Back to the second-hand Mazda for you, bub.

There’s nothing objectively wrong with studying in your car as a last resort, but that doesn’t mean it won’t feel like it. Any sense of newfound freedom you get with it (say, eating a whole rotisserie chicken while studying) will be fleeting at best, and the reality of what you are doing (eating a whole rotisserie chicken while studying) will eventually set in.

Also everyone walking past will think you’re smoking weed because that’s the only normal reason why someone would be sitting in a parked car on a uni campus.

When he’s not writing for Uni Junkee, Luke Hickey can often be found in corners of the internet jabbering about the New York Knicks, thin-crust pizza and MF DOOM outtakes.

(Lead image: Burn After Reading/StudioCanal)