Study types

Barely Legal is blogging about the people you meet during exams. Working in a library and being a perpetual student myself, I see these people everyday. Most of those here are Braggarts, but I meet my share of Possums too.

Braggrats are those who pride themselves on working the hardest, and need to tell everyone about it. Like this conversation:

Braggart A: "I'm exhausted, I've been here for eight hours."

Braggart B: "Really? I've been here for ten and I'm just getting started."

Braggart A: "Well, I just finished my Tax outline. It's 60 pages long."

Braggart B: "60? Is that all? Mine is 75, and I finished a week ago. But I'm sure you'll still pass."

Braggart B has won. He is the new Alpha of the bragging nerds. Braggart A must retreat back to his cubicle to see if he can lengthen that tax outline at all.

Possums are the real sneaky ones. They claim to be clueless, but they really have it nailed.

In reality, she is fully confident in her ability to succeed on her exams. Her "playing dumb" is just a smokescreen to hide the many hours she spends perfecting her outlines and memorizing the UCC. Of course, the following semester, when she learns that she got a 3.7, she acts genuinely surprised, as if it were some fluke.

At the end of the day, I like to have The Possum around. She is sort of like a stripper: She makes you feel better about yourself, even though you know she is lying.

In reality, they are probably just fishing for a compliment or for a copy of your notes. Or they are really uncreative when it comes to pick-up lines....