<p>Mine is the fire alarm goes off and everyone is basically like "who gives a ***" and doesn't feel like going down flights of stairs and standing in a parking lot at night. The sirens and lights are outside the rooms. Eventually someone or other starts banging on doors and shouting stuff like "get out there or you'll be fined". So everyone eventually shuffles down there. Turns out my dorm set the campus record for the *longest time taken to empty the building at like 15 minutes (it's a relatively small 3 story dorm).</p>
<p>Anyways they decide to be d-bags and run the firedrill again 2 days later because we "failed" so good. Result....to avoid being fined everyone just closed their blinds and crap when the alarm went off. An angry email went out saying things like they were disappointed and they'll run as many drills as it takes to get it right blah blah. Result was they gave up with no more fire drills.</p>
<p>Haha. The fire alarm in my old dorm was a solid sound (no beeps). I am not really bother by this, so once I actually considered sleeping through it. I decided it was best if I participated, though.</p>
<p>And one time it went off at 10ish in the morning, about 5 minutes before my alarm went off therefore serving as an alarm.</p>
<p>Fortunately they don’t happen frequently (3-4 times a year I suppose).</p>
<p>everyone got out pretty fast every time we did it. it was like once a quarter, so 3 times a year or so. this thread reminds me of the episode of dorm life where they pull the fire alarm to try to figure out where mystery hot girl lives. hahaha</p>
<p>If you can’t understand that fire drills are required by fire chiefs/marshalls of whatever town/city the school is located in, then you are pretty immature and shouldn’t be in college. They don’t hold drills just to be a nuisance, they hold them because they are required to be sure that everyone knows what to do in case of a real emergency. If they didn’t hold drills, and someone got hurt in a real fire, you can bet the school would be sued very quickly. Grow up. OP, what school are you from? Because for so many students to be that stupid and juvenile tells me it doesn’t attract the brain surgeons of tomorrow!</p>
<p>Fire drills were during the day, but some engineering kids’ hovercraft battery exploded one night around midnight, and we were outside for like a half hour. Then in the next semester, someone accidentally set their trash can on fire. At 4:30am. While it was pouring rain out. So the whole building of 500 was standing outside in the rain at 4:30 am. We didn’t get back to our rooms til nearly 5. Fun. times.</p>
<p>I don’t know about you, but my first instinct in case of a real fire isn’t to run around in a circle frantically waving my arms. Self preservation sorta says “go wherever there isn’t fire”. Hence these drills are pointless. Heck we’ve all been doing them since elementary school…I think we get the idea. Fire = BADDDD. Besides, every dorm is usually constructed of bricks and steel so even if there were a fire, you could leave, go to a 9 course meal, and come back and the fire wouldn’t have moved.</p>
<p>See, OP, you are still in the phase of thinking in the ego-centric mode. That IS a sign of still being young. Sure, YOU know what to do in the event of fire, but the guidelines/regulations are made to be sure that even someone not as capable/knowledgeable/experienced would also know what to do. The authorities have to provide the learning experience to ALL. Maybe someone from a foreign country, or someone from a very remote, foreign area could be attending your school, and NOT know that you should shut the doors, not use elevators, gather in one particular area. Maybe someone with an anxiety disorder would freak and lose it and hide. Someone with a disability/handicap may need to do something differently from what you would do. My college roommate was deaf, so needed to know what the fire alarm system was like to know if it was going to be effective (pitch of sound, brightness of the flashing light in our room) YOU never know, so that is why precautions are taken. YOU are in college, and it’s time to think about potential problems for others, not just your own self. When you live in a dorm community, they can’t just run drills for certain people, so everyone needs to cooperate. And, when a real fire exists, your hall could seem completely different from what it is like normally. How many doors do you pass to locate the stairwell? In a pitch black, smokey hall, that would be important to know. In a dorm, one stupid kid smoking in bed or doing something else dumb could jeopardize your life. Kind of even more important to take this seriously than ever before!</p>
<p>Sure they can. Or at least they don’t need to make it mandatory for everyone under threat of fine. I can see justification for these drills at the high school and below levels because legally the school is taking parental responsibility during school hours (according the the Supreme Court at least). But at college and in the real world, no such assumption of responsibility is present. If you have an anxiety disorder, you’re not 5 years old, you should be able to deal with it by the time you’re 18 years old. Otherwise you’re just as likely to die 10 years later in your own house if it caught fire.</p>
<p>Your arguments are also fairly silly and akin to saying “well because 1 person might get a speeding ticket, we should mandate that everyone go to traffic school”.</p>
<p>Your arguments are also fairly silly and akin to saying “well because 1 person might get a speeding ticket, we should mandate that everyone go to traffic school”. </p>
<p>So, by your reasoning, we don’t need speed limits, since most people know to drive at a safe speed? I think my arguments show a lot more maturity and thought about possible issues than yours. Again, you do think only about your perspective. Good luck with that.</p>
<p>If you don’t want to be fined, don’t live in the dorm.</p>
<p>If anything the argument you just made reinforces my position:</p>
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</p>
<p>The answer is obviously no. But the signs only serve as reminder that there is a speed limit. Just like you can put up signs with evacuation paths that are reminders where to go in case of fire. A fire drill would = making everyone repeatedly take a class talking about nothing but the speed limits, which doesn’t happen in the real world.</p>
<p>ah i also forgot last semester when my room flooded (and the main floor flooded) causeing the fire alarms to go off. God that was the coldest ever, it was like -20 outside ><</p>
<p>One day, some intelligent soul decided to microwave instant noodles without water, leading to much smoke, a fire alarm at 3am and a dormful of people standing in the cold.</p>
<p>All the more reason to be like “who gives an eff” whenever the alarm goes off…especially since it’s unlikely instant noodles are going to burn the joint down. If anything all the drills have desensitized me so I won’t even care in case of an actual fire.</p>
<p>When I was at the U of M, back in the day, in East Quad, there was a student who started fires in the trashcans in the hallways in the middle of the night during 2nd semester midterm week and finals week, too. We had to be evacuated several times and once it was very bad, a lot of damage was done and a few students jumped out of 2nd story windows. Obviously, the student had mental issues and could not cope with the pressure of midterms and finals. The students were very upset and some started studying in the halls at night and a few big guys walked the halls carrying baseball bats. It was tense. One student was suspected. Never found out for sure who did it. The suspected student did not return the next year. I don’t think I ever mentioned this to my parents, though, at the time. </p>
<p>The worst is when you’re in a dorm with a cafeteria on it. We had cooking fires set the fire alarm off at least once every two weeks all of last year.</p>
<p>Drills? Not sure. But alarms? Heck yes. Two years ago they redid all of the fire alarm systems in our dorms, and it went off about 80 times that year. Sometimes in the middle of the night, sometimes early in the morning, whenever. A lot had to be people failing at cooking, and I know a fair amount were people smoking in their rooms (obviously not allowed).</p>
<p>The number of people that evacuated the building steadily decreased. They got it working a bit better the next year, it only happened once a week or so.</p>
<p>It’s not about whether you agree with it’s overall necessity or not. So if your boss tells you do something that just MILDLY INCONVENIENCES you for a short period of time do you ignore them? I think that’s a good way to get fired. Anybody who did that here would probably be booted out of the res halls in no time. They really don’t have time for clowns.</p>