Stop hogging space during hell week

Home Opinion Stop hogging space during hell week

Booths in A.J.’s Café, classrooms in Lane Hall, and study rooms in Mossey Library are about to become the hottest commodities on campus. As papers, projects, and finals start to take over your life, it’s important to remember that there are 1,507 other students on campus.

We have become too accustomed to hoarding classrooms for ourselves and reserving coveted tables for hours on end with our laptops, bookbags, cell phones, or pens. It’s so much a part of our culture that we don’t even seem to think twice about it, and we’re all guilty.

This semester, however, we should be more cognizant of how our seemingly inconsequential actions affect our peers.

Of course, if you need to leave your items in your claimed space to grab some lunch or run a quick errand, nobody should blame you for this. This is one of the greatest benefits of our collective adherence to the Honor Code. On the other hand, we must be careful not to abuse this trust. Just because we can use our laptops as $500 reserved signs doesn’t mean that we should.

Instead, if we need to leave a public study space for more than an hour, even if we plan to return, we should pack our bag and take it with us, leaving the space open for somebody else to work.

Similarly, we should be willing to share larger study areas, realizing that others face similar deadlines and stress levels. If you have a classroom or a large library table locked down on a Saturday, invite somebody looking for a table to join you. More than likely, you will both throw in headphones and lose awareness of the other’s existence, or you may make a new study buddy.

We are all on this journey together, and the opportunity to walk alongside each other on the path and help out in small ways along the way is something we should embrace.