Month: March 2020

Sadly, as the days get longer, sunnier, and warmer, we are not back at Penn State to revel in the glory that is springtime. However for my final post, I will be discussing perhaps the students’ favorite springtime/warm weather spot, the HUB lawn.

On the handful of warm days we had before break, the lawn was immediately crowded with people enjoying the sunlight. Whether it be the group of people playing frisbee, the friend group laughing near the top, or the student sitting on the picnic blanket working devotedly on whatever project may be at hand, the lawn attracts all types of people for activities of almost every scenario.

It is the perfect place to take advantage of the warmer weather after a winter trapped inside, however true devoted students who sit on the lawn and manage to do work without getting distracted can all agree on a handful of things.

First, the WiFi on the lawn is bad. And I mean really pretty terrible. Occasionally I will get enough connection to sign into canvas and start hunting down my homework, however more often that not I am not even able to connect to the canvas page, making my computer obsolete and meaning I have to focus on any paper work or notetakings I have to study from during my jaunt sitting on the lawn.

Second, the lawn has no outlets. A rather obvious statement, however it needs to be stated. Honestly, It would be weird if the lawn did have outlets but even so, access to outlets needs to be considered in even the best study spots since today is so technologically oriented. However, as I stated in the previous paragraph, the HUB lawn had some of the worst wifi connection on campus so if even if you come to the lawn with a dead computer, you would not be missing out on an online homework opportunity anyways.

Third, the lawn is not comfortable. Laying on the grass seems nice, however when you realize there is hard soil and rocks hidden in the grass, it becomes slightly less comfortable and even more so when you have to sit up to do your homework and end up hunched over with your back aching due to there being no chairs or places to rest your back on the lawn.

Given these negatives, you may wonder why people would want to study in such an awkward area, in the middle of a club spikeball practice. However, the feeling of sunshine on the face of a student who spends their whole day under artificial lighting is intoxicating, it is the feeling of carefree and true happiness they do not get to experience in the dreary winter, and so we students put aside our discomforts for a moment to feel at peace with the earth, even if we are still working on some kind of work on the side.

Saving the best (or at least most used by me) for last of the study spots, I am rounding out the semester with the silent study areas inside of Pattee and Paterno Library. Personally, I do my best work in the dead silent when I can sit down, turn off my phone, rid myself of other distractions, and just grind out homework.

One of the first areas I discovered in the library was the notorious stacks. Hidden away by towers of books and home to a mysterious murder, the stacks of the library form a prime spot for people to hide away with their books in a small cubicle overlooking the road. During the day, these cubicles are typically empty but at night and as finals week approaches, they steadily get more and more crowded until there is hardly a spare cubicle open.

There are several floors of these stacks, each one as silent as the last. Each cubicle in these stacks is a simple metal desk, only a few having outlet access. However beyond that, the stacks are fairly well lit throughout the night, forming a stark place where people can feel like they are by themselves and are able to work on everything without distraction.

The other main place in the library I love to study is the quiet room with the long wooden tables and green lamps on the second floor of the library (formally known at the Paterno Humanities Reading Room). Referred to by many people I know as the “Harry Potter” room, this room is a 24-hour quiet room. Occupied heavily on weekends after 1 o’clock or weekdays from 5 o’clock at night to 2 o’clock in the morning, this room is frequented by many people.

At each table, there is room for eight people to sit with a comfortable

amount of room for each on of them, two lamps at the table for when it gets dark and there is not enough overhead lighting, and several outlets and USB ports at each of these lamps, offering enough charging ports to last several people throughout a multiple-hour study session (as I am prone to do here).

There is enough room for people to spread out and a quiet atmosphere, people can hole themselves away in a very antique-library setting that I find helps motivate me late at night better than the more bright and modern areas I have written about previously.

Overall, this “Harry Potter” room is probably the best place on campus for me to sit down at any hour and grind through hours of studying and school work. I would highly recommend this area (and the stacks too) to anyone who needs new spots to contemplate studying at next year.

Welcome back everyone, after the couple week hiatus from blog posts, I will be back with a final two to round out the semester. Unfortunately for this blog, since classes are now being held online, I can’t necessarily go and visit new spots in person so I will be relying on my memory to write these last two posts.

For the last two posts, I will be writing about the Pattee and Paterno Library and the many spots it has to offer. This blog will be about the commons areas of the library (such as the media commons and knowledge commons) while the other post will focus on more of the quiet study areas such as the stacks and the harry-potter type room on the second floor of the library.

The library has several areas where noise is permitted to a certain level (shocking, I  know). The most popular of these areas by far are the new Collaboration Commons in the basement of Pattee and above it, the Knowledge Commons and Media Commons areas.

The Collaboration Commons is the most modern area the library has to

offer with bright white tables and chairs scattered in a variety of places with lots of natural light streaming in from the windows and bright artificial light to make up for it in the areas the light doesn’t reach.

This area is usually fairly busy, especially throughout the brunt of the school day and into the evening (10 till roughly 5 or 6). It clears out a little at night but it is an area that always consistently has over half of the tables occupied. There are ports to charge devices at almost every table and there are multiple rooms and pods in the area that are available to book online, however you need to book far in advance since this is such a popular area they fill up quickly and long in advance.

Up the stairs and to the left is the Knowledge Commons with the Media Commons housed in the back corner of it. Unlike in the Collaboration Commons, the Knowledge Commons has computers at every deck with several printers scattered throughout the area. It tends to be louder in this area mainly to to the group projects that tend to meet in the area and the click-clacking of students typing on the keyboards. Circling the area are rooms like in the Collaboration Commons with T.V.’s inside that people can project their computers onto. Further back in the Media Commons are more rooms to rent out and several studios people can use to record in too.

These area’s tend to have a fair amount of people in them, too, however not as many people as the Collaboration Commons and it tends to clear out earlier in the night.

Overall, I have found myself working in the Collaboration Commons quite often but not the Knowledge Commons. The Knowledge Commons tends to be harder and have a more cramped, dusty feeling while the Collaboration Commons feels new and open. I would recommend people to study in the Knowledge Commons if they want to use larger computers than their laptop or if their computers are broken, however I would recommend the Collaboration Commons to people who can work in more crowded areas and need more bright light shining on their work.