When it's exam season it can be difficult to find a quality location to sit down and study. Some spots are too loud while others have too many distractions or are crowded most of the time. To start, your dorm room is not an ideal place to study because it's made for sleeping, relaxing and not for focusing intensively on academic material. When finding a good location to study, try dropping in between classes, later in the evening, early in the morning or before noon on a weekend.
Here are eight places, throughout different campuses, that I think are ideal studying spots.
1. Carr Library: 2nd and ground floors
While the main floor of Carr Library can become quite noisy at times, the second floor and the ground floors generally silent. The second floor has lots of corrals and four team rooms that can be reserved for group reviews. The ground floor has a computer lab, tables and a few corrals near the door. Note: The corrals do not have outlets near them so make sure that your laptop is fully charged if you are going to be using it to study.
2. The College Ave Academic building: hallway
The hallways in the College Ave Academic building have really good natural lighting. There are chairs, comfortable benches and tables scattered throughout each level of the building.
3. Empty classrooms
When a classroom or lecture hall doesn't have class or an event, it is free to use. Classrooms are great for group review sessions and individual studying. The only downside is that most of the rooms don't have tables.
4. Residence hall study rooms
If you live in a residence hall on campus, it will most likely have a study room. Study rooms usually contain a few tables and chairs along with air conditioning (if your dorm room doesn't have air conditioning). They are usually pretty quiet.
5. The Business School: 5th floor lounge
The fifth-floor lounge of the Business School has large comfortable seats, tables with outlets and an amazing view of Livingston Campus. There's also a TV. The fifth-floor lounge can get quite noisy between the hours of 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.
6. Chang Library
Zijun Xu
The Chang library has plenty of worktables, large comfortable seats, computers, and corrals for individual studying.
7. Livingston Student Center: 2nd floor and overpass
Zijun Xu
The second floor of the Livingston Student Center couch chairs, high tables, and high chairs. If you like having some background noise, then it is a great place for you to study. The overpass connects the Livingston Student center to the Rutgers Club. There's a nice view and it's usually very quiet.
8. Learning centers (on all campuses)
The learning centers have quality modern tables and chairs as well as team rooms. Learning centers also have academic coaches and tutors to help you with studying.
