If you’ve ever sat down at Joe Coffee on a weekday afternoon, you’ve probably witnessed the uncomfortable sight of a coffee chat—the long, awkward pauses, the grasping to find something in common, the slight drop of some impressive internship. At some point in your Columbia life, chances are you’ll find yourself on the other side of that experience. These chats—an informal conversation that’s usually around 30 minutes—are common for student organization applications, Greek life big-little chats, or even just getting some advice from an upperclassman. Here’s your guide to perfecting the art of the coffee chat.

While assignments and exam studying may be piling up, the hardest feat can often be trying to figure out which library on campus is best for you. Each library is unique in its own way and attracts different types of people, from Butler loyalists to those who judge people out of Avery. To dive deeper into the Columbia libraries, we spent an hour in five of Columbia’s favorite libraries with one ultimate goal: to figure out where you belong. Here’s a look at what we thought about each library and what type of studying it’s most conducive to.