Everyone has that spot on campus that they retreat to when there’s homework to be done, and where you choose to go to says a lot about you. A brief disclaimer: these are just for fun, and have no bearing on reality whatsoever.
The Main Floor of the Library
If you’re doing homework on the library’s main floor, then odds are good that you’ve got a group project you’re working on that is stressing you out beyond belief. One member of the group isn’t answering their phone, and another is going through a rough time and can’t put in 100% of their effort, leaving you staring off into the distance wondering where things went so wrong. (Hint: it was when you waited to have your first group meeting one week before the project was due.) Just try not to pull your hair out, understand that group dynamics can be hard to get the hang of sometimes, and just keep telling yourself that you’ll never have to talk to these people again after the assignment is over.
The Library Basement
There are exactly two types of students who study in the basement of the library. If you’re the first type of student, you have a class that’s turning out to be a fairly meaty challenge for you, so you’ve decided to use the basement of the library as a makeshift hyperbolic time chamber, hoping that you can catch up on two or three weeks of college in just four hours of studying. (Spoiler alert: you can’t, but trying is better than giving up. Trying might get you a high C or a B. Giving up means you’ll end up retaking the class.)
If you’re the second type of student, you actually think that what I just said describes you perfectly, but you have a 95 or higher on every single grade in the class and are pulling a 4.0 GPA overall, and don’t really need to be studying as intensely as you have been. Protip, if you’re this type of student: friends are a good thing to have and actually, you know, spend time with now and again. Chill a little bit, have some fun once in a while.
The Lobby in Whitlock
If you had a pull-string, you’d say, “Guys, you should totally come to my Blackroom show this Tuesday, it’s gonna be lit.” Your favorite musicians are The 1975 and [INSERT INDIE POP ARTIST HERE]. You are an Imagine Dragons fan (with a 50% chance that you don’t tell anyone because you’re embarrassed ever since public opinion swayed against them). You have either a single or a whole EP coming out that you’re really excited about, and you better believe that it has multiple synthesizer solos on one of the seventeen songs you wrote about your last breakup (which also happened to be your first and only breakup). You have a second Instagram account with a surprisingly large number of followers, and your Insta handle ends in the word “music.”
The Education Lounge on the Fourth Floor of Marston
I’m going to be perfectly honest, I was unaware that this place even existed until someone pointed it out to me. So, if you’re here, that means that you’re almost certainly an Education major trying to find a quiet place to study. Also, seeing as it’s on the fourth floor of a building with no elevator, your calves are probably insanely toned. (Seriously, my quest to get this picture nearly killed me, it would be exhausting climbing those stairs every day.)
Jo’s Java
You’re a bit of a romantic, or, at least, that’s how you like to think of yourself. Your favorite show is either Friends, Riverdale, How I Met Your Mother, Pretty Little Liars, Grey’s Anatomy, or some other angsty drama that they’d show on ABC Family (it’s apparently “Freeform” now, but I’m still calling it ABC Family). You follow @thekenyacole on Instagram. You’re probably a Digital Media major, or you just really need a cup of coffee to get you through the day you’re having.
The DC
If you’ve ever done homework in the DC, then you lived out the following scenario, verbatim:
You just got done working on a homework assignment that feels like it’s taken forever to finish. You either finished it, or told yourself that you’d come back to it later, with a full belly. You went into the DC to sit with your friends, when someone from another one of your classes said, “hey, did you get the assignment done?”. “What assignment,” you ask, feeling the briefest flash of panic in your chest. “The assignment that we’re supposed to have done before class, that wah wah wah wah…” Their voice fades into the distance like an authority figure in a Charlie Brown cartoon as the memories come flooding back to you. Of course you had an assignment due, the professor mentioned it like, three times! Okay, don’t panic. You can do this. You have roughly forty-five minutes before class starts. You can totally write an entire four page paper before class! (Narrator: She couldn’t.)
Kaufmann
You’re either a Digital Media major, or it’s your freshman year. (Alternatively, you’re on the Papyrus’s Facebook Live team.) You have a video editing/photo editing assignment due tomorrow that you can’t stop complaining about. You’ll be here until around three in the morning, at which point you’ll feel the life drain out of you as you stare at a progress bar in one of the Adobe programs, waiting for something to render or finish loading. Also, odds are good that you have a boyfriend or girlfriend sitting next to you, looking over your shoulder the entire time you work on your project.
The Jesus Statue
You sit here because sometimes, you almost imagine that you can still hear the whispers of some quiet conversation. You sit here alone but wish that someone would come and join you, to give you some solitary company. You hope that maybe, by sitting here, you can find some long forgotten words or ancient melodies.
The Union
You have a homework assignment that you should be working on, but instead, it’ll sit there open on your laptop as you sit and talk with your friends. It’ll remain undone for a while, as you wait to get your food, talk with your friends, sit in silence with your friends, sit alone, sit with people you can’t stand, sit with an acquaintance, whatever, you just really don’t want to be working on this particular assignment. Finally, you’ll realize that you aren’t getting any work done, and you pack up your things and begin to head to another spot, just so you can actually get some work done, thus continuing the neverending cycle to try and find the spot on campus where all of your homework will magically be done and you can finally relax.
All images courtesy of Joey Clinton.
