I’m a third year at a small and young Cal State. If I could time travel to May 2015 to stop my past-self from committing to this school, I I would. I won’t list all the reasons I’m disappointed, but I’ll list some things I think are outrageous issues. I don’t know if they’re unique to my school, but my friends at older, more established, and well-recognized CSU’s and UC’s said they didn’t have these issues.
- Noisy library and no area of quiet study.
The library is by far the biggest building on campus and acts as a hub for the entire school. I’d argue the majority of campus happenings occur here. Nearly all of the buildings on campus were built for the U.S Army decades ago and are small, dated, and not convenient for students to convene with each other outside of class. There are two additional buildings built after the university was formed, but those are also pretty small and lack areas for students to convene. The residential halls don’t have study areas. I believe these factors contribute to tons of students being in the library without the intention of seriously studying. Students talking in the library has always been in an issue for me. People blatantly disobey signs that say “Quiet Study” on them and I feel like I’m in the minority of people desiring to find an area of little noise. I don’t think that administrators see an issue with this- I’ll give some examples:
- A few weeks ago there was a live music event on the first floor the library. Our library has three floors and I could hear the bass echoing off the walls in the corner of the third floor. A group of students brought speakers and DJ’d music. They clearly had approval from library staff as they had a school projector they hooked their laptops up to.
- There is a room labeled “Quiet Study.” In this room, the school often has different pieces of art or is showing off an exhibition. On a few occasions, administrators have come in with visitors to show them the exhibition and will speak at a normal speaking volume. Many university staff have offices in the library and they’ll often speak at full volume when walking throughout the library.
- There is a coffee shop on the first floor of the library. You can sometimes hear their blender and their music from the third floor.
-During finals week, staff puts out a bunch of tables for an event called Welcome to Finals (WTF) on the first floor. They give out free food, have board games out, and bring out dogs from a local shelter. This causes a mass of students to conglomerate throughout the entire first floor and talk. The noise rings throughout the library.
-There are no desks clearly designated for solo person use. Instead, most of the desks fit two-four people. There are also couches throughout the floors. I think this contributes to students hanging out and just talking. When I looked up the specs of the library, I found a video from when it first opened. It labeled the first floor as something like “Interactive Plaza,” the second floor as “Collaborative Studying,” and the third floor as something like “Traditional/Little noise study.” I think the roots of the noise issue might root in the library’s design.
-Our Division ii athletic teams often meet up in the library. I’ve seen a group of six basketball players and their coach use a group study room to review game film. They left the door open (it was 7 huge people in a room meant for 4 people) and were loudly talking). This past semester, I noticed that athletic teams gather up in groups and just hang out in the “Quiet Study” room I referred to earlier. They were there because they were forced to be in the library for a certain amount of hours per week- this is evident due to a paper on a table that had a list of names and a sign in/sign out column.
-Frats/sororities do their rituals in the library. They’ll often pile tons of members into a group study room and leave the door open. E.g: One sorority literally walks around the entirety of the library in a single column line and stops to pick up pledge members. Each sorority member will greet the pledge. The pledge then joins the back of the line (picture the game Snake) and they continue stomping throughout the library to pick up other pledges. This is distracting as hell.
When the live music event happened, I finally called the library desk. I got transferred to a librarian. She agrees that noise carries well throughout the library and that students do talk. When I pushed on the question of why it seems appropriate for live music to be in the library, she directed me to the library dean by email. He also conceded that noise carries well and that events like the one I complained about were rare. He then said we could physically meet to help me find areas that are “almost always quiet.” I was pissed. I go to the library everyday and know where and when to expect noise based of the time of day and time in the semester. Is it too much to expect having a quiet area of study on a university campus?
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In the last month of every semester, my school has thousands of local kids from K-12 schools to tour the campus. They’ll pile into buildings (including the first floor library) and will be loud. There really isn’t much on campus to show off besides the 3 buildings built for the school, so this is where they tend to conglomerate. I’ve heard students and teachers complain about this- especially as they were sometimes right outside of classroom doors during finals.
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There’s an Alumni page in the magazine my school releases at the end of each semester. There’s names and a description of individuals who have recently graduated. The description of a person who graduated in a major similar to mine was, “_____, Marine Science B.S, is married and living in PG. She works as a body piercer a Body Arts and says she uses her major by arguing online about climate change.” Seriously? Is the magazine publisher trolling? I’m worried about my future. I feel that there’s a large sense of student apathy and it’s hard for me to find peers who are genuinely interested in using their college education after they graduate. I feel like my school is just a degree mill as well- it’s much easier and less competitive than my high school. In high school, I was surrounded with driven peers and had great motivation and optimism for my future. Now, I really have to focus on being self-driven as there’s apathy amongst my peers. I’m worried about the quality of my education and am questioning why I’m even here.
I was wondering if anyone has been in a similar situation and/or could suggest ways I could work to change issues at my school or feel less irritated about it. Maybe I’m just a horrible fit for this school and others don’t see what I listed as issues.