There are hundreds of first-year students swarming around campus, largely in herds with the occasional worried parent trailing along behind.
I've been back at university for almost a month now, and it's a shock to see the calm on campus shattered so suddenly.
I try not to feel crabby about the crowds because I'm happy for first-year students, I really am.
They've finished high school, most of them are free from curfews and parents forcing them to do their homework, and they're just beginning to learn so much about themselves.
It's all very refreshing and charming at this time of year.
Especially from afar, because when I think of my own first year at university it's an unpleasant blur of too many gigs at Refuel and worrying about how best to remain a part of a cool friendship group while simultaneously getting only good grades.
I'm also haunted by the memory of starting a music degree with the ridiculous idea in mind that it would actually help me start a career in music.
Since then I have come a long way - I never go to Refuel and I've got an ever-useful bachelor of arts (with honours) in English literature.
But, even as I make my way through the crowds trying my hardest to be positive, I can't help but get a little bit snotty.
And it's not because I resent people having a nice time, it's because I'm worried people will think I'm one of them.
My fear of being mistaken for a first-year is obviously irrational.
There's nothing wrong with being new, or with being young.
But I've been at university for five years and I'm still cursed with a baby face that perpetually communicates a sense of dread and worry to the outside world.
I'm so concerned about looking like an 18-year-old that I'm trying to walk with more confidence, I'm trying to emanate direction and certainty while I worry that my clothes are too childish in combination with my backpack.
I don't want people thinking I'm scoping out my lectures a week early like a giant nerd when I'm actually going to work on my masters (like a giant nerd).
It has occurred to me that perhaps this anxiety stems from the knowledge I don't actually know what I'm doing a lot of the time, and the fear other people will notice I am hopelessly flailing through daily tasks.
As it goes, I'm not all that worried about being lost and confused; I'm only 22 and everyone around me is just as nebulous.
But when you're 18, you tend to think that by the time you're 22 and you've got two degrees your life will be pretty together.
Everyone else knows this isn't true, and for that I am grateful, but I don't want to crush any hopes and dreams, even from afar.
When I see clusters of students who're obviously so excited but so nervous about their tertiary education I don't want them to look at me and think that I look as freaked out as they do when I've had five years to stop freaking out.
I would like them to continue thinking that you're an adult when you're in your early 20s.
So maybe it's not that I don't want to be mistaken for someone young and excited, it's that I don't want to disappoint anyone when they realise I'm a postgraduate student who doesn't know how to boil an egg or fold an elasticated sheet.
●Millie Lovelock is a Dunedin student.
