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I have often walked past the Health and Human Development (HHD) building on my way downtown or when walking to the southwestern corner of campus, however I was never brave enough to step inside and explore it on my own accord. It wasn’t until I had a club meeting inside the building that I took the opportunity to explore behind its gorgeous brick and glass walls to discover the rather large study area nestled inside of it.

The HHD Building was constructed in 2015, making it one of Penn State’s new wave of buildings on campus. The new building was “part of an effort to unite several of the college’s research centers into new facilities in close proximity to the main academic departments,” aiding the expansion of the HHD Department.

Located on College Avenue, the HHD building looks out into the stores of Urban Outfitters and Harper’s on one side and onto the BBH Building and Nursing Sciences Building on the other side. Situated between the HUB and Old Main but nestled back behind the BBH and Nursing Sciences Buildings, the HHD Building is often overlooked unless strolling downtown.

Exploring inside the building, there is a soaring glass arboretum four floors high where the study spaces are located. Scattered throughout it are modern-looking chairs and tables. Chairs lining the walls with short stools next to them, chairs with bar-stool tables lined up against the windows, and normal tables with chairs around them on the first and second level towards the back.

The center of the arboretum is empty, providing a view to look upon all levels of the area and glass stairs and walkways running through it. At this point, it does not surprise me that this building is so pretty and aesthetically pleasing inside, Penn State seems to pride itself in building its new building with this toke artistic flair.

Overall, I would rate this building as a fairly good study spot. My only hold backs are that outlets are not readily available by the windows with the bar-stool tables, however there are plenty of outlets everywhere else that if you do need to charge your electronics it is easy to switch seats to one close to a power source. The environment is fairly quiet and few people come in the building until later in the day, after four o’clock or so.

I would consider this building among one of my favorites that I have studied at, yet not my absolute favorite. Its location makes it rather inconvenient for me to walk to, I would much rather walk the slightly shorter walk to the BBH building than make the detour all the way back here to study. However since I have a class in here next semester, maybe I will make more use of this area to study since I will naturally be there three days of the week already.

About every fourth time I step outside of Atherton, the residence hall where I live, I walk past the Biobehavioral Health (BBH) Building that sits across the HUB lawn from my hall. Its soaring glass window on the wide and cement patio area full of tables and chairs always captivates me, but I had never managed to actually find time to step inside its walls  to explore until recently.

This building houses the Biobehavioral Health Department…. as made evident by its name. The BBH major focuses on learning “the science behind health” by learning not only the traditional biology and chemistry but also physiology, genetics, nutrition, and health and developmental sciences.

Truthfully, I was drawn to this building not only because of its beautiful exterior but also because I am interested in the BBH field and medicine, making me feel a little bit more at home when I walked into the building.

There are no listed hours for the BBH building anywhere, but I have found that it is not open very late or on weekends (unlike other buildings on campus such as Willard), something to note when looking for study spots.

Walking into the BBH building through the glass doors, you come to modern-looking stairs leading up through all levels of the building. As the stairs come to a landing on each level, chairs and tables are lined up by the large glass wall next to the stairs, providing seating for around 20 people (typically 10 or so if they work alone and don’t share tables like the typical college student) on each of the three levels.

On each of the pillars that separate the tables from each other is an outlet, conveniently located so that if you are studying at the tables you hypothetically never need to relocate in order to recharge your phone or computer if they die.

Overall, the BBH building is usually relatively quiet, only stirring between classes when students are walking up and down the steps but other than that, it remains silent. I personally really enjoyed studying here. It provided a secluded atmosphere that I enjoyed along with a birds-eye view onto the activities on the HUB lawn if you need to take a break from your work and stare off into the distance for a little bit. I will definitely be revisiting this building in the future so if any of you walk by, look up into the glass windows and maybe you’ll be able to see me studying!

The Biomedical and Chemical Engineering Building was one of the first places I ever studied at in my Penn State career, however it fell off of my radar until my roommate (a BME major) suggested going to study there with her one night.

This building makes its home right behind the Chemistry and Life Sciences Buildings and is a fairly new creation, opening just this year (with some areas in the building still not being finished). I repeatedly heard about this building last year during my numerous visits and tours I did here, so I was anxious too see what all the hype was about for this building.

On each floor, there is a study area in the corner where the walls are made

of floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook a calming view of Shortlidge Avenue and the surrounding environment. This area holds three semi-circular couched and a couple sidetables near them with a kitchenette area and elevated table behind them. A circular light hanging above the couches is able to turn different colors at the command of a strip located on a wall behind the couches, too.

Aesthetically looking, this area has it all from cool tables and couches to modern interior design and architecture. However, realistically as a study spot, this area lacks outlets and the couches don’t have ideal tables to put books and study material on with the side tables being short and offering little over a square foot in top surface area.

Do I come here to study? Yes. Is it the best place to study? It depends what your looking for. The building is relatively quiet however there are the occasional meetings and events being held near these areas which result in a little more noise. Even so, historically the building has been kept open late at night so it proves to be one of the few buildings open this late. As a plus, this location is known by relatively few so it is never crowded.

Yet overall, it’s not my favorite place to study. Yet it is conveniently located near my dorm, Atherton, and it is aesthetically pleasing enough that my friends enjoy going there to study. If I needed to buckle down and study, I wouldn’t come here however as a casual study spot with friends I keep it on my list of favorite spots.

My stop for this post is in a place I never considered studying before until one of my friends extended an invitation for me to join her there and work on homework together. The Chambers Building, home to the Education Department, is located in the direct opposite side of campus from where I live, residing in northwestern corner of campus across from the library and next to the Psychology Department.

Rarely do I frequent this area of campus besides when I attend my english class or go to a psychology study, so I took my friend up on the offer and decided to explore this building a little bit more.

Within this building, there are several different and unique areas to sit down and study in. Walking up the stairs once you first enter, you are greeted with glass-sided rooms and the Krause Innovation Studio, full of comfy chairs and tables to sprawl out on and do homework or relax with friends. Each time I walk past on my way to english, people appear to be grinding out homework and working on projects, however I never managed to stop in and study.

When I came to work on homework with my friend, we chose to skip the Krause Innovation Studio and instead go into one of the connecting bridged in the Chambers Building. These bridges are made of glass and connect the two sides together and in them they host comfortable booths with tables and plenty of outlets to plug in all your electronic devices. My friend and I immediately claimed one of these booths and spread out, working on homework in the quiet environment for over two hours.

The atmosphere these bridges provides is

unique to them. Even though you are inside the bridge, you feel connected to the outside world because the glass windows allow sunlight and birdsong to trickle in. It remains relatively pensive in there because there is a limited number of booths, meaning that less people can fit in there and therefore there is less noise and distractions to take away from studying.

Overall, I think this bridge has been my favorite place to study at. It has not only comfortable seating but also easily accessible outlets and large tables to spread out all your work ontop of. I got the most work done here and felt the most productive so I would highly recommend this as a place to study if you are in the area.

 

The HUB-Robeson Center forms arguably one of the most recognizable landmarks on campus to the typical Penn State student. From eating food to attending club meetings and seminars to simply studying here, the HUB does it all. Not to mention, the lawn hosts events and activities at least once a week and inside its doors numerous stands are set up aiming at getting people to attend an event, join a club, or simply be aware of an occurrence. Thousands of people walk through the HUB daily, adding to the bustling environment and slight chaos that comes to everyone’s mind when people mention the HUB (besides the expensive name-brand meal places that suck the LionCash out of their account too).

The HUB is in the mid-southern section of campus, walk a block over and you reach Old Main, walk a block up from there and you come upon the Library. The HUB is a convenient location for most science students, landing right in the center of a majority of the science buildings, and students who live downtown off campus, being a pit stop between the walk from campus to the numerous downtown apartments and houses.

The HUB offers several different areas to study, entering the glass doors on the first floor of the hub there are benches and tables lined up end-to-end that students congregate at to eat, socialize, and study. However, these are probably some of the loudest and most crowded places to study in the HUB.

Leading from the first floor to the second floor are the iconic High School Musical steps that people love to gather around and relive their elementary school fantasies. Yet these steps, too, are always crowded; a common theme in the HUB. They also offer no real table or anyplace to put your materials besides laying them down on the step around you, forming a rather uncomfortable and inconvenient study location.

On the second floor, there are numerous areas of comfortable chairs and side tables, some that look down onto the first floor and others that simply stare at the other chairs and people studying there. Off in a corner is an area of true tables and chairs but these tables are small and it is rare to find an unoccupied one, even at 8:00 at night.

Finally, on the third floor (and my personal favorite spot) are more comfortable chairs that overlook the first and second floors from behind a glass wall, muffling the roar from down below and providing an other-worldly almost god-like viewing experience. Here, it is also crowded although probably the easiest area to find chairs because it is not immediately accessible from the outside, you have to walk up an industrial stairwell that’s hidden in the HUB. It is typically a quiet atmosphere and therefore I find myself getting the most work done there.

Overall, I find myself revisiting the third floor of the HUB mostly because of its convenience. It closely mimics the quiet environments i focus best in, however if I have more time on my hands I will typically go find a different place to study just so I don’t have to deal with the hassle of crowded people in the bottom floors and the distractions that come with walking through these floors (such as the delightful smell of food).

This next location wasn’t even planned for me to stop at. As I was walking to a research study for psychology, I walked past the Forum to discover this beautiful glass building, the new School of Music Recital Hall.

As you may have garnered from the previous sentence, the School of Music Recital Hall is right next to Forum and relatively near the Pattee and Paterno Library, heading north. This area is a place I rarely explore, being a science major and stuck with my studies in the southern-central area of campus so it was a refreshing break from normalcy to come here.

This Recital Hall is a fairly new addition on the campus, replacing an old hall that used to stand there. Inside the hall it can seat up to 400 people and is the main venue for the School’s recitals and music performances.

What caught my eye was not only the wall of windows with tables sitting next to it in the Hall but also the availability of studying right outside the windows in the sunshine too. I acknowledged that soon this outdoor study area won’t be ideal (plus it was 90 degrees on the day I chose to come here) so I settled for the inside tables near the windows.

Looking out of the windows, you are greeted with the scenery of a beautiful garden and white chairs and tables surrounded by white concrete, making it a serene area to relax and listen to drifting strains of music on the wind.

Inside, there were relatively few tables to do work at and all are bar style. There have been people here every time I have come, however it is usually relatively quiet (with exception of the occasional person studying there who can’t contain their excitement nor their vocals).

There are a few soft, pleather-style backless couches against the wall, however those seem to be a better place to sit and wait for something than actually buckle down and do work.

Overall, I found this place to be inviting and somewhere I could truly concentrate on my schoolwork since it is so far removed from the paths I usually walk on campus. I would wholeheartedly suggest if not studying here, then at least coming to admire the architecture of the building and the landscaping and how they come together to form a modern and beautiful scene.

 

For this location, I chose a spot where I, personally, would never choose to study due to what I thought would be a loud atmosphere and close proximity to food (a major distractor of mine). However, every time I enter Redifer Commons there are dozens of students scattered around the tables eating, studying, and socializing so I figured I owed it to myself and my fellow students to explore this popular study environment.

Redifer Commons, aka South Dining Hall, is known for its real-world type

of dining experience, offering five to six different possible places to eat a-la-carte at a given time, which differs from other dining hall’s buffet’s and occasional coffee shop and grocery store. Redifer typically is very busy around standard lunch and dinner times (think 12-2 and 5-7, with a bonus late-night meal from 8-11) and it is therefore difficult to find a table to yourself that is undisturbed by the hustle and bustle of the eating students. During these times Redifer remains in a perpetual uproar, the clamoring din caused by hundreds of hungry students waiting in lines and eating their meals.

Even so, between meal times Redifer is a relatively laid-back environment with scattered students studying and dining hall workers restocking the food areas. Personally, this is the time when I would choose to study at Redifer. It feels relatively secluded and yet still open and not like you are hiding, unlike most other study environments.

Like all the dining halls, Redifer offers numerous different types of

available seating, from booths to regular tables to bar tables and from tables out in the open to tables tucked far in the back. For my study spot, I chose the green study area that overlooks the actual dining hall, a kind of secluded study area that houses only a couple of booths to do homework in but still allows you to feel included in the busy environment of the dining area it overlooks.

I would recommend Redifer Commons to people who like to be around a buzz of other people when they get their work done or to people who enjoy snacking during their study sessions (because you can buy snacks here, obviously). This area would work best for people who have odd times off in their schedules if they want to study to avoid the crush of mealtimes.

Overall, Redifer Commons is fairly conducive to studying in my opinion, however I tend to prefer areas more secluded and away from the rumble of people. Even up in the green study space, there are still people conversing usually, making it hard for me to put my entire focus into my work.

To everyone reading my blog, hello and welcome! This blog serves to document my journey through Penn State’s campus and the many nooks and crannies that the university has to offer. Throughout these posts I aim to talk about each place in terms of the number of people there, the surrounding noise, the different spaces within the area, and its overall conduciveness to studying (in my own personal opinion). I hope that by sharing this information I allow students to find areas where they can truly focus on their task at hand and GET WORK DONE.

I aim to explore not only the typical venues that students use to study at Penn State but also lesser known areas tucked away in buildings, restaurants, and even the outdoors in order to provide a coherent overview of the multitude of places a student can go.

For my first stop, I decided to test out the Huck Life Sciences Building, specifically the glass Verne M. William Gateway to the Sciences bridge that connects the Huck Life Sciences Building with the Chemistry Building. Located right above Pollock and South Halls, this building makes its home in a place that effectively slices Shortlidge Road into two pieces, a central location close to well-known buildings such as the HUB, Thomas Building, and Eisenhower Auditorium.

It is a bit of a hike to the study area because it is on the third and fourth floors of the building, however the views provided from the height of this bridge are ones other buildings can only dream of having. From the glass bridge one can  look out and see the mountain ridges that come cascading down to form the place all students call home, Happy Valley.

 

Within the glass bridge, cushioned pleather chairs are provided lined up near the windows with small side tables and more pleather benches next to them. There are two real tables with hard plastic chairs on the upper level of the bridge, however they are tucked off into the corner and typically occupied.

No real tables are provided near the pleather chairs so one has to either hunch over to use the short side tables or accept that they are going to have to balance all their work on their lap if they prefer a more comfortable working position.

At the time of day I went to study there, there was only a handful of people there, maybe seven. However, it is known to fill up towards the end of the day with most seats becoming occupied. Overall, it is known as a quieter study place with only the faint mumblings between a group of students and some patterings on keyboards that may disrupt studying.

I don’t think this would be my top choice of place to study when I have a lot of work to accomplish. Don’t get me wrong, it does create a nice atmosphere, however the table situation is not ideal. When I study I tend to like to spread out and get comfortable, yet using the small, short side tables creates a less-than-ideal scenario for my comfort.