Secret Study Spaces

School is getting to me. Isn’t it getting to you? I read when I’m waiting for the bus. I read when I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. I read and read and read and none of it’s for pleasure.

These days I move from class to study space to class to study space again, and find myself hovering around the same few places. In an effort to exercise my legs and to expand upon possible places to haunt, I’m going to start a list of study spaces on campus that don’t include the already overpopulated libraries (namely, Irving K. Barber and Koerner, for my purposes), where you have to hunt and fight to carve out a place for you and your books, and ask you to add places you know!

The ones below are somewhat hastily compiled, because I have too much work to get back to:

Brock Hall offers two great spots for studying: the Centre for Student Involvement, and the corridor on the second floor just outside Classroom Services. This corridor has desks and chairs going all the way down, and is not often fully occupied (at least, from what I’ve seen of it). Probably a great choice for commuter students in particular, who may want to be within close proximity to the bus loop.

The window alcoves in Buchanan Tower, particularly on the fourth and fifth floors. Small benches next to the windows make for almost perfectly undisturbed reading, except for when professors and students pass by and look at you funny, because they don’t really expect to see anywhere sitting there. No desks, though, so it’s no good if you need to write anything substantial, just if you need to read.

Departmental undergraduate rooms. I don’t know about you, but I know that English undergraduates have their own room in Buchanan Tower that is more often than not fairly empty. I don’t often go there, however, because there are no windows, and I get a little crazy if I can’t see the outside world every now and then. It’s why, if I go to Koerner, I’ll only ever take a desk by the window overlooking the court out front, and never study in the basement.

Residence commonblocks on a Sunday morning are refreshingly empty. Actually, any early morning will do, I suppose. And you don’t have to be in residence to sit in the commonsblock, which is nice. The only problem with this venture is that these commonsblocks tend to be out of the way for commuter students, unless you have a class in Swing Space.

The Beanery in Fairview is out of the way for most people, but if you’re really lazy, you can take a shuttle bus down there. A two-storey coffeehouse with all sizes of tables and chairs on both floors, it’s a quiet place that is perfect for studying in for hours. Con is that you do have to purchase something to stay there; pro is that this place offers the cheapest hot chocolate on campus that I know of (as of last year, anyway, when I was actually comparing prices). Oh, another con is that I invariably fall asleep on the sofa if I sit there, so be warned.

Do you know of any other places you can almost guarantee will have space for you to study in? Add onto the list!

Update: For even more study spaces, check out Classroom Services’ meta-list and their informal learning spaces map.

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