Deduction 1: The Freshman

6, November, 2023

I took a part-time job a week ago as at a dining center in a university with a side mission of learning to deduce people in real time. I think any job that provides opportunities to observer, deduce and interact with people are really good for learning deduction, especially the one with a huge pool of different people. The best one, I think, is working in dining facilities because everyone need food. But if you’re particularly interested in a type of people, choosing your niche venue would be a better choice. Say you’re interested in fit people, you can choose to work at a sporty store, or a gym.

While working today, I have a chance of briefly observing a girl. Shy, had a school bag and carry a A-3 or maybe even A-2 book, the type that artists draw, bunch of necklaces and a name tag. I have a feeling that she was a freshman, first year in the university. But why can’t she be any other year, but freshman?

When people are working, studying, living in a place for a long time, they tend to have their social group, where everyone acts, dresses, speaks somewhat similarly. And in a society (university) there’re several different social group: nerds, military, gym rats, frats, etc.

With this being said, the people that tends to be the most different than these group are the newcomers, or freshman. Maybe in high school, some were already in a similar setting as in the university, such as gym rats, but the one that are different definitely are not from around here.

The girl in my situation ticked a few boxes to be a freshman, 2 of the most outstanding one are being shy and have her name tag on.

Could there be a chance that she’s in higher class and the name tag is for a completely different reason? Always, but chances are she is the freshman.

Knowledge check, according to Papercut

• Each A size increase is half folded.
• A4 is the most common format, used for note keeping, documentation.
• A3 usually displayed horizontally used for a poster.
• In NA, Letter, used for general printing, documents, slightly shorter than A4
• In NA, Legal, used for legal documents, slightly longer than A4
• Tabloid, used for newspaper.