Devil's Advocate: Do People Have the Right to Study in Cafes?
YES: Agata Mala
Absolutely, people have the right to study in cafes. In fact, to deny this would be a violation of a basic, unspoken human right: the right to sip a latte while staring blankly at a Word document and feigning productivity. I mean, let’s be real — if you're a paying customer, you are entitled to the full cafe experience, which includes lingering for hours on end, riding the Wi-Fi wave, and feeling like a true coffeehouse intellectual. You've paid for that coffee, and that means that you're basically renting a tiny plot of caffeinated real estate.
Let’s address the elephant in the room (or rather, the MacBook in the cafe): people seem to think students with laptops are somehow disruptive to the cafe ecosystem. As if it is our fault that Rector’s Cafe has created the perfect study environment with its soft lighting, soothing indie playlists, and overpriced yet somehow irresistible toasties? If you ask me, they knew exactly what they were doing.
Now, I understand that there are complaints about us hogging tables, but this is an unfair accusation. Once you sit at a table, that table is taken — whether you have a novel, a notebook, or a NASA-sized collection of notebooks and devices, the result is the same. If a customer sitting with a single espresso shot in front of them for four hours is valid, then so is the diligent student typing away on their third draft of an essay on the legacies of capitalism. And for those grumbling about space, I’m sorry, but it’s not like our laptops take up more space than Karen’s toddler, who’s currently throwing biscotti bits everywhere and treating the cafe like a personal playground. If anything, we’re the most contained demographic in the cafe — we’ve got coffee in one hand, notes in the other, and headphones firmly in place.
Then there’s the whole ‘just study in the library’ argument, as if the library is some kind of student utopia, designed to foster productivity. To those amongst us who do not thrive under pressure, the library is a desolate wasteland of silence, where the only sounds are the frantic flipping of pages, anxiety-inducing clickety-clacking of keyboards, and the existential sighs of overworked undergrads. Libraries aren’t sanctuaries — they somehow simultaneously act as sensory deprivation and sensory overload chambers disguised as study spaces. Meanwhile, the gentle hum of a milk frother and the light-hearted chatter of old friends and colleagues create the perfect white noise, providing just enough background ambience to make us feel alive. Plus, there’s a constant flow of caffeine and pastries!
Cafes, in essence, are the modern-day salons of intellectual discourse and deep thinking. Sure, some people use them to scroll through Instagram, but others — noble, dedicated scholars like ourselves — use them as the bastions of productivity they truly are. To deny us this space would be to deny academic progress itself. So, yes, we have the right to study in cafes, and we’ll do so with our caramel macchiatos held high!
NO: Noah Begasse de Dhaem
Before boring you with my tedious moralising, I would like to invite you to partake in a small thought experiment. Step with me into the shoes of an average St Andrews student on a typical November day; it’s a tropical four degrees centigrade outside, and the biting wind has sapped you of all warmth. Looming deadlines and fog are all-consuming. You exit the library after a productive morning and head into the Old Union Cafe to find comfort in a warm bowl of soup. And, before you, they sit, taunting you, mocking you. Clicking away at their keyboards, their books and cold coffees lying strewn all over the tables. There is no space to sit, you take your coffee to go, rush to the nearest bench and cry. Wiping away the tears from our eyes after such a sad story, we must ask ourselves: Is this town so devoid of humanity that we tolerate these injustices?
So, should students have the right to study in cafes? Maybe. It is up to the cafes to regulate the behaviour of their customers. My hope is that as a result of my sermonising, the student body will collectively realise how reprehensible it is to study in cafes, and it won’t need to become a question of rights. In that vein, the issue of space in cafes needs to be addressed. As alluded to by the thought experiment we all enthusiastically partook in, people who study in cafes take valuable spaces away from people who come to the cafe to go to a cafe. When a four-person table could have been occupied by a happy group of friends having a hot drink together, it is too often hogged by a cafe-kulak who has deemed those spaces better served by their pile of readings. We must also consider that this town is not exclusively a university, and that non-students also populate it. The key difference between Barry (63, pensioner) and Frank (21, student) who both sit for hours reading at the cafe is that Frank can go do his readings at the library and Joe can’t. Simply put, studying in a cafe is a gross misallocation of scarce resources.
And to those who say that they don’t like studying in the library, that isn’t a good enough excuse. The reality is that university study isn’t all sunshine and pastries; when deadlines approach and the going gets tough, we all end up in the trenches of the Main Library. So why bother with this lie, with this fake productivity? Surely if we always had space in cafes when we wanted a break from study, we could more effectively separate work and life. We wouldn’t study in our favourite pub, would we? I shall end my spiel on a more moderate and conciliatory note: if you insist on studying in a cafe, do at least spare a thought (and a space) for us other patrons, who want our cafes back.
Illustration by Isabella Abbott
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