<p>Okay guys, I get the points you are all bringing up, but independent of the fact that they're a hassle, at my particular school they completely backfired. Kids milled around the hallways and trickled out slowly, not really taking it seriously. No one could hear what the fire marshal was saying, and we immediately went back inside, and most kids said they probably wouldn't leave if the alarms went off again because it would probably just be an unannounced fire drill. So in terms of live lost in case of a real fire, this would be a disaster. And, even if we have to have the drills to test out equipment, if they were announced beforehand, then kids might stay in their rooms if they choose, or study elsewhere while it was happening, to avoid it. That's not the main reason to announce them though, it's that in the case of the alarm going off when there is no announced drill, there would be no doubts that this was an actual emergency, and the students would exit with haste.</p>
<p>By not announcing these drills, they are instilling an atmosphere of doubt and indicating that they would not trust us to adequately complete the drill if we knew it was just a drill beforehand. There was no organization in this case. No one checked to see if there were people still inside. We were not kept out there for very long (in fact, I was one of the last few out, and I was back inside in about thirty seconds). Yes, technically the blame is on the students, as they should always leave when a fire alarm goes off. But realistically, the blame is more on the administration. They should by now understand the mentality of a college student.</p>
<p>Hmm, well I have two pretty good reasons for exiting the dorm for an unannounced fire drill: 1) hey, it might just be real, and 2) who wants to stay in their rooms for 20 min while that obnoxious siren bares? We had one this morning about an hour before I was gonna wake up for church, and frick, I was in my boxers, but I got out. Also, regarding the "we are now adults" argument, I daresay that a good majority of kids in college do not yet know how to be fully fledged "adults", and especially in our society of helicopter parents and whanot.</p>
<p>germoon-if you really think those kids seriously meant they weren't going to leave and weren't just trying to be "cool"...well, you've got another thing coming.</p>
<p>The fact is, it's been pounded into our skulls since Pre-K that if you hear a fire alarm, you get out. You don't wait to find out whether it's real. These kids all know that, and you better believe they'll be hauling ass out of there if they hear a fire alarm. No one wants to get burned to death.</p>
<p>On the side of unannounced fire alarms...we don't have them because it's very easy to get out of our dorms (Very few are more than 1 floor and it's just get out the front door), but I don't think they're a bad idea. If there's ever a real fire, it's the most likely it's going to happen late at night or early in the morning when no one's there to stop it before it gets serious. Be thankful your school is looking out for your safety.</p>
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I daresay that a good majority of kids in college do not yet know how to be fully fledged "adults", and especially in our society of helicopter parents and whanot.
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I wholeheartedly agree, there's not a chance I would describe any of my fellow college students as "adults", let alone "full fledged adults". But by 18+ years, people are smart enough to know what to do in the event of a fire alarm. They do not need drills.</p>
<p>As a RA who has done fire drills before, I agree completely that they are necessary. For those of you who say that "everyone knows what to do" then why is it that I have seen people staring out the window at me when I walk around my building during a fire drill?</p>
<p>Some of them were students that were just too stupid to leave, and others were foreign exchange students, who did not know the meaning of "fire drill" or what the siren meant. Perhaps that is why colleges, where some students come form places that did not have "siren = evacuate" drilled into their heads, still practice regular fire drills.</p>
<p>Where I go to school, everybody knows what to do when the fire alarm goes off. This includes foreign students, who have either been told about them, or are informed by students who do know what is going on. Maybe it's different at your school(s) like at wsuwarrior's, but I've never seen that problem at my school.</p>
<p>I kind of disagree with the idea that fire drills are useless -- it depends on your dorm as to the degree of usefulness (for example, my dorm has sixteen floors, and the dorm next door has eighteen, so it is quite useful to know how to get out if you live on the tenth floor, like I do). I also actually think unannounced ones are better than announced ones, since they're more like what would happen with a real fire. At my school, we have scheduled fire drills every week that test the system, and they tell us not to leave during those. Not a big fan of those...</p>
<p>Anyway, if you're still not happy with your school's drills, remember this: there's usually someone who has it worse. :) For example, most people evacuate and end up on their nice, green, closed campuses. People in my dorm evacuate and end up in their pajamas/towels off of Union Square. This happened at the beginning of the year, because some idiot pulled the alarm.</p>
<p>I have still haven't been in a fire drill once. Somehow I always am not around (for all four last year and one this year) and I'm glad I have been. I know what to do and I have better things to do than to listen to some fire marshall when I should be working on homework, sleeping, going to practice, etc.</p>
<p>My school just puts a message on the board that says "there will be a fire drill this week, so don't shower between 10pm and 1am." and it seems to work fine because it's semi-expected.</p>
<p>germoon... it sounds like some of the kids at your school are not that bright, and that your administrators need some lessons in how to handle fire drills.</p>