My favorite time to do homework is in the afternoon. In the afternoon I am at a meeting or in class or at color guard practice. This means that I do most of my work later at night. I like that the library hours have extended to 2 a.m. from midnight. This allows me to stay at the library later to do work, and helps me get my work done sooner. I have left the library at midnight to go back to my dorm to do more work. I have late nights doing work in my dorm room or in the lobby on my floor or the lobby on the first floor. I’m looking for a quiet area to concentrate.
I like to go to the third floor of Sykes to do late night studying or work. The Sykes Student Union is open until midnight. Now with the library being open till 2 a.m. on certain weeknights, I have more time to do work.
It’s not just me either, that uses the library late at night. During the first week of extended hours, I took advantage of it and stayed at the library until closing time. I was surprised to see how many other students stayed until one or two a.m. I didn’t think many people would be there that late. I know personally I have said that if the library was open later than I would stay later. There are times where it would get to be late at night, that I would have limited time at the library. At this rate, there were times where I would decide against going to the library and do work in my room. The other night I said I would go to the library after watching the TV show “Lie to Me.” If the library closed at midnight, I would have lied to myself about getting to the library. By the end of the show I collected my books to go to the library. Before making it out my dorm I stopped to talk to friends as I made my way to the main floor. An hour passed since the show ended, it was then 11 p.m. If the library closed at midnight, I probably would have turned around and gone back upstairs. However, that night, the library was open to 2 a.m. This gave me three hours as oppose to the usual one hour.
I like silence when I’m doing my work. Or sometimes background noise, like music, can be a comforting noise for me to do work to. The library can provide more of a quiet area than a dorm, depending on the hour of the day or night. Sometimes the night of the week can affect how quiet places are.
I can’t expect the dorms to be quiet in the middle of the day. After quiet hours, there should be less noise, but that’s not always the case. At least when I go to the library in a quiet area, I can expect the room to be mostly quiet. After 10 p.m. the library gets really quiet, which I think is really nice. It’s quieter late at night in the library than in the dorms. In the dorms you can hear doors opening and shutting, people walk by talking in normal volume voices, the elevator makes noises, and the list is endless. I like that the hours are Sunday through Wednesday till 2 a.m. This is more flexible to people’s schedules. The library is open early enough for people to go to before or in between classes. Now the hours of operation welcome morning and late night workers.
I can see that other people are happy with the library being open later. It shows with the number of people that are still there after the library would have normally closed. I’m sure that most people would have wanted this to happen sooner, I’m glad that this happened at all. I will continue to use this resource as it is offered to the students.
Ginger Rae Dunbar is a junior majoring in English with a minor in journalism. She can be reached at RD655287@wcupa.edu.