Mongoose populate multiple with references

I would like to ask if it is possible in Mongoose to have a field in schema with multiple references. eg. If we have a role field that references to other model specifying that role.

Like User - ref -> student/teacher.

no. mongo is no-rel db and what mongoose does is query the model you specify in the ref with the id supplied in the field data.

so, refs are basically bad practice in mongo (by default of-course).