Have you ever ran into Skillman hoping to print, but both Reference North and Reference South were jammed, and class was in 10 minutes? Yep, me too. I surveyed some friends and, with their help, have compiled this list of the 10 biggest, little pet peeves at our beloved college and second home, Lafayette.
1. Friday afternoon labs
I'm not a STEM major myself, but I know that the most avoided lab section is definitely Friday afternoon. At that point in the week, you just want to be done with classes, and either take some time to relax or get ahead on your mountain of homework. But then you remember: You got stuck in the Friday afternoon lab section. Well, sh*t. Thankfully, this is only a semester-long problem, and as you get older and have earlier registration, you get to pick whichever lab section you want!
2. Reference South
You know how I introduced this article with a very relatable story about needing to print, but the printer gets jammed, so you're late for class? Ninety-nine percent of the time, this can be pointed back to a single printer: Reference South. While it looks like a pretty sturdy printer and has definitely done practically every Lafayette student a lot of good, there's also a lot surrounding this printer that can be downright frustrating. That includes:
-Jamming at peak hours
-That one person who decides to print 100+ pages when lots of other people need to print
-Just flat out not printing your stuff at all
Bottom line: Of all the technology at Skillman, Reference South has been scientifically proven to break down the most often and at the most critical points of the semester.
3. Marquis is closed on the weekends.
I can say every year I've been at Lafayette, there has been at least one weekend where I've tried to plan brunch with my friends, and we've made our way to the center of campus before we realized that Marquis would be closed until Monday morning. Now that Marquis has the crepes, I'd love to see some weekends where that's available.
4. That one person who takes an entire study room to himself... especially during finals week.
Silence is a gift sometimes, and when you're trying to find a study room at Skillman, it's nothing short of infuriating to see a single person taking an entire room, especially if it's apparent they aren't saving those spaces for someone else. If you're holding down the room for your group project or study squad, fine. But with lots of empty classrooms in Pardee, quiet spaces in the back of the library and lots of other study spaces around campus – my personal favorites are the OCGE study room on the second floor, the basement of Kirby Hall of Civil Rights and the dorms that are lucky enough to have their own little libraries, such as Soles, Grossman and Watson (keep that in mind during housing lottery, folks).
5. When it's 10 p.m. and your key shuts down for other dorms, but you want to visit a friend.
Sometimes, you're just done for the night and would like nothing more than to watch some "Parks and Recreation" with a friend. You're walking over to your friend's dorm and casually try to use your checkpoint, but then you check your phone and realize it's 10:30. You then have to call or text your friend, who has to come over (and often down several flights of stairs) to let you in. The safety reason behind this system is something we all take for granted, but damn, as someone who has lived on third floor Ruef, I know how tiresome it can be to have a friend come over at night when they can't get in the building.
6. Climbing up and down the stairs in front of the Fishers to get basically anywhere on campus
Not everyone has lived in the Fishers, but almost everyone has a friend who has. The Fishers are a great place to live, from the suite setup to the elevators and the general distance from the rest of campus can make it great for hosting parties. But then at some point, the Fisher residents have to get up in the morning and trek over to the other side of campus for class. Lafayette is a fairly small campus, so the walk isn't too bad – except for when you have a small mountain of stairs to climb up before an 8 a.m. lab and knowing to get back to your bed (and pizza left in the fridge, of course), you have to encounter those stairs again with a risk of needing to leave and going up the stairs AGAIN. Even leaving for Sunday brunch has its cost, seeing as you have to quite literally walk from one end of campus to the other when Farinon and Gilbert's are the only places available to use meal swipes.
7. The ever-changing menu at Lower.
This one is more of one upperclassmen can relate to, but don't fret, freshmen, you'll get it next year! Every year I've been at Lafayette, nothing has changed quite as drastically as Lower Farinon. I remember being a freshman and my friends and I would get buffalo chicken wraps that can only be described as dank, but once I returned for sophomore year, the chicken wrap was nowhere to be seen on the hot foods menu! The crepes to-go station, the deli sandwich counter and the stand where you could have a salad made for you are long gone, albeit with current version of what once was (crepes now in Marquis, deli sandwiches to order from the hot foods counter and a salad bar are Lower 2015-2016's realities).
And for those of you who don't know, Gilbert's used to be the late-night food spot. Parm-chive fries, macaroni and cheese balls and all sorts of other yummy snacks are now long gone.
8. When you're at Upper and the food trays need to be replaced.
YES! One of your favorite meals or side dishes is at Upper today! You head over, hungry and excited to fill your plate with the delicious treat and leave the dry, grilled chicken behind. But then when you make it to the front of the line, the tray is empty, and since the cooks at Upper are super busy, it ends up taking a while to get it replaced. So, you either have to wait or momentarily pick some other food, either of which can make even the most rational person quite hangry.
9. When your 11:50 ends at 12:05.
You've paid attention, you've participated, it may even be a class you enjoy, but when it's 11:50, you're ready to go. If you're unlucky, you have a professor who disregards their time constraints even if you have a lunch meeting, you need to go see another professor or if you're just hungry and ready to leave. Yes, professors do have a certain amount of power in their job, but if it's a class at 9 or 10 when you have another class you need to get to, it's really frustrating to be consistently held in class because the professor wants to keep talking for another 15 minutes.
10. Simon's doesn't open until 5:30, and the 5:30 line is horrible.
Not all, but many people agree Simon's Cafe down by Kamine and the Fishers has the best food on campus. However, that deliciousness comes with a price. Unless you were smart and got an extra sandwich or half to save, the rest of us are left waiting until dinner to treat ourselves to one of those delicious flatbreads.
And that's just some of the first tier college problems we have, but at the end of the day, we're just glad to be going to Lafayette (and eventually getting our Simon's sandwich).
