As final exams approach, College of Arts and Sciences senior Valerie Rickman finds herself spending eight to 10 hours a week in the near-silence of Boston University’s Mugar Memorial Library.
Right next door, CAS sophomore Samantha DiPalma studies in the sometimes deafening roar of the food court in the George Sherman Union.
Students this fall have plenty of choices when it comes to finding the right place to spend hours studying, including areas with more noise and food options and quiet areas where snacks are banned.
Rickman said she spends her time studying and reading in Mugar because it offers few distractions.
“I like it because it’s quiet,” she said. “Any area where there’s minimal talking is where I can work the fastest.”
Other students find the silence of Mugar too dull to study. DiPalma said she likes studying at the George Sherman Union because of its busy atmosphere.
“If it’s nice outside, I prefer to study at the BU Beach, but when it gets cold, I actually like to study in the GSU because there is so much going on there,” she said. “I need background to my studies, and it helps me do better work. I get too bored in the library, and I start daydreaming and taking naps.”
GSU Administration Director Annemarie Kougias said she thinks students prefer studying in the GSU because of the variety of available study venues.
“Some like the activity of the food court,” she said. “Some like the quiet, daytime study in the East Enclosure. Many need the group study space in the Ziskind Lounge and the East Enclosure at night. Anyone who needs quiet to study is obviously directed to the library, which is close by.
“We also operate the Late Night Study Center at the General Classroom Building, operating from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.,” she continued.
Many university residences have more than one study area available to students. Aside from dining halls within dormitories where some students like to do homework or study, there are also special areas designated for quiet study or computer labs in some buildings.
沃伦塔有三个研究的休息室the towers, aside from a smaller student lounge on each floor. Some students also do their work in the building’s laundry room while waiting for their clothes. Danielsen Hall has a study area on the first floor with couches, tables and a fireplace, as well as a basement with a quiet study lounge and a separate student lounge with couches, a kitchen and a flat-screen television.
But students can find study areas outside of their dormitories as well.
The College of Communication’s student lounge, located on the school’s first floor, is the academic building’s main study area, with tables, couches, computers and wireless Internet. The college also has five computer labs available to students when classes are not using them.
According to Student Services Acting Assistant Dean Micha Sabovik, these areas around COM go through regular renovations.
“The computer classrooms are updated in their entirety every few years, and the software is constantly updated,” she said in an email. “The COM Lounge has had minor renovations over the past few years, the last major one having been done in the early nineties.”
一般研究的大学也开设了两个newly renovated study lounges for students. The Gilbane Lounge was renovated two summers ago, according to Assistant Dean Stacy Godnick, and is “approximately 3,000 square feet of study lounge space, which includes tables, couches and private group study rooms, and it is wireless.”
The college also has a second study space — the Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Study Center, renovated last summer and dedicated in September. The 6,000-square-foot lounge includes wireless Internet, private study carrels, study tables and private group study rooms.
“Both spaces are heavily used and much appreciated by our students and alums,” Godnick said.
For those students who seek shelter from the cold and do not want to stay in their dormitories or go to their colleges to study, there are also other establishments around campus, such as Espresso Royale, available to them.
“I prefer to study in an environment in which I have some background noise,” Pollock said. “I like to look at people while I work also, so places like Starbucks or Espresso Royale are ideal, because they have a high influx of different types of people.”
