College is a crazy adventure of bustling schedules. Moving away from home into one giant home shared with hundreds of other students is quite a change. Between classes, office hours, homework, studying for exams, athletics, clubs, jobs, and social life, it seems as though students have very little time to just sit back and relax on their own.
However, it is even harder to take a break by yourself when the campus has very few private spaces. Especially during the school day, there are people wherever you go: the classroom, the library, the student union, and even most hallways you hoped would be abandoned. Although it’s nice to see a friendly face or hear your name shouted from a distance, it doesn’t allow for much privacy when you need it.
So, where do you go to have private conversations or to be alone?
Although dorm rooms do offer a higher level of privacy than the student union, it is hardly reasonable to rely upon as them as a solution. Between differing sleep schedules with roommates, possibly having a roommate that never leaves the room, and famously thin walls, dorm rooms are less than desirable when you need a place to make an important phone call or just be alone — much less to take your online classes.
When the weather is nice in the fall or spring, finding a peaceful spot under a tree or relaxing on a bench seems like an adequate option. Unfortunately, Michigan does not allow this for much of the school year. When it is 20 degrees and snowing, making a private phone call outside very quickly becomes unpleasant.
The college does have a few silent spaces and even others designated with the goal of privacy in mind. For example, the two lower levels of the Mossey Library, dubbed “Purgatory” and “Hell,” are known for their maintained silence.
So, maybe the library is the best place up the hill to relax if you truly want silence. Of course at that point, you will be surrounded by books and studying students.
Furthermore, the library claims to offer soundproof study rooms that offer privacy for group projects and phone calls. These rooms are highly popular with students. Sadly, they are almost always in use and, from experience, far from soundproof.
In the future, it would be beneficial to have more private rooms around campus. For example, dorms could designate empty rooms as private study spots. Specific classrooms could even be reserved as “break” rooms. These changes would be an investment into the quality of student life for the student classes to come.
In the meantime, plan ahead and save a room in the library. Or else, it seems as if you will join the rest of college in trying to ignore the 20 people they know in an attempt to have a few minutes of peace in blissful silence.
Amelia Teska is a sophomore studying the liberal arts.
