What student cliché are you?

The university campus is chock-a-block full of cliched subcultures. Think you're an individual? Think again. Which student cliché are you? Let us know in the comments below.

Jess tried her hardest to blend in during Freshers' Week

The fashionistas

Lectures aren’t for expanding your brainbox. Don’t be so ridiculous. No, their sole purpose is to showcase a BANG-ON-TREND outfit dahling. Fashionistas use their student loans for one thing and one thing only – improving their appearance. They take longer getting ready for seminars than a bride does on her wedding day, tottering about on stiletto heels and wearing foundation so thick you could scrape the words ‘low self-esteem’ into their forehead. And that’s just the boys. Big nights out are a hidden excuse to take 110 attempts at that ever-elusive perfect Facebook profile picture.

Pros: Can give you killer fashion advice and are probably quite nice/smart underneath it all.

Cons: Will make you feel gross for wearing your PJs to lectures.

Wasters

If you could do a degree in eating Doritos and having religious experiences whilst watching Family Guy these folk would get a first. Although, in reality, they’ll probably just about scrape a 2:2 in Philosophy. Most likely to be spotted lying on grass verges around the union, boasting to each other about how many lectures they’ve missed and who’s got the biggest bong. It’s tempting to point out they could’ve just done exactly the same thing at home and saved themselves a couple of grand’s worth of debt. But you don’t wanna ruin their buzz…

Pros: They know a dealer and have some good DVD box sets you could borrow.

Cons: Talking to stoners when you’re not stoned is probably the dullest conversation you’ll ever have.

Rugger-buggers and Netball Nymphs

It’s a Wednesday night, it’s ‘Sports Night’. Your feet are sticking to the dance floor whilst Summer of 69 gives you tinnitus. On one side of you, someone is vomiting up Snakebite while their mates cheer and applaud; on the other, a rugby player’s hand is up a hockey girl’s miniskirt. Welcome to the world of The Sports People. When they’re not attacking each other on Astroturf, they’re strutting about campus like they own the place wearing HILARIOUS fancy dress outfits. That means cross-dressing for boys and lingerie-disguised-as-a-cute-bunny-costume for the girls. Initiation into such clans usually involves: eating each others’ sick, getting naked and stimulating sex acts on each other. Classy stuff.

Pros: Toned body parts to stroke, and can usually get you tickets to all the good union events.

Cons: Likely to give you something itchy downstairs and then tell all their mates – scoring with this lot can be an own goal.

Gap Yah bores

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a middle-class student cannot ‘grow as a person’ unless they’ve spent some gap year time either:

• staring into the eyes of a sick Indian orphan and realising we’re all the same…but different.
• jumping out of an aeroplane in Australia, whilst, like, totally wasted.
• standing on top of some spectacular waterfall and having a “Wow, nature is, like, completely humbling and beautiful ” moment, before writing a cliched travel blog so riddled with adjectives it’s like they’ve vomited up a thesaurus.
• shitting themselves in a youth hostel.

Once they’ve ‘grown’, Gap Year-ers start uni and will bore you endlessly with their tales of self-discovery. Don’t ask them questions unless you fancy condemning yourself to a 15-minute monologue about the time they tried to cross the Vietnamese border with drugs stuffed up their a-hole and no passport.

Pros: They can offer good travel tips if you’re interested.

Cons: Complete lack of self-awareness and tendency to look down on non-travellers.

The Activists

Megaphone? Check. Che Guevara T-shirt? Check. Petition against the vivisection of Mongolian shrews? Check.

These wannabe activists are angry about everything – and don’t they want to tell you about it. Campus is the perfect recruiting ground to indoctrinate scared freshers into attending yet another protest. Watch out for their table – piled high with petitions and badges showing Margaret Thatcher’s face photoshopped onto the arse of Beelzebub – and walk past quickly to avoid being drawn into a debate about the evils of consumerism.

Pros: Great if you fancy venting about The Man.

Cons: If you’re right-wing inclined you may not see eyeball to eyeball.

The career climbers

These people – shock horror – actually want to LEARN while at university and are using any opportunity possible to further their future careers. They’re likely to sign up to every single extra-curricular activity going, no doubt become a student rep, run to lectures to get a front row seat and lick the professor’s arse afterwards. When essay or exam time comes round they’ve already nabbed the best books in the library and refuse to share notes – like getting a degree is some kind of competitive sport. They bring an actual laptop to seminars whilst the rest of us scribble notes in blotchy biro on the back of a receipt from Boots.

Pros: Get them on side and you’ve got a killer study partner.

Cons: On a night out they’ll make you feel guilty by mentioning tomorrow’s 9am lecture and leaving early.

Photo of purple hair girl by Shutterstock