You CAN jam out and study at the same time!
Throughout the past 3 years at Vanderbilt I have explored a variety of study spaces, desk set ups, buildings, and study partners trying to find the perfect local. Well I think I have narrowed it down to my top 2 choices! The first being Buttrick, a classroom building located near the middle of campus that is open all night long; the second, the 6th floor of Central, the main library ( 1 of 8 ) on campus.
Read More to see why they are the perfect locals….
Buttrick is great for what I like to call “low-key” studying. All of its classrooms, ranging from 60 person lecture halls to 20 person discussion rooms, are open to all students all night long when classes are over for the day. I have used the rooms for practicing for group presentations, studying with a group, and even for light individual studying. Most of the time, other people will join you in your room, whether you know them or not. This is much more common during exams when people are looking for great study space; yet I find no shame in walking in on a stranger and, politely of course, asking if I can share their classroom with them.
One of the more fun perks to studying in Buttrick is the accessibility of the classroom computers and large screens. These are great for practicing for group PowerPoint presentations, but also come in handy when you need a study break and want to watch some music videos with your friend Scott (as I may or may not have done about an hour before I wrote this post…). This is where the jamming and studying at the same time happens!
Now Central is a little bit of a different experience than Buttrick; it doesn’t provide the same music video friendly atmosphere and is used when I have more “intense” work to do, such as cranking out a 10 page paper or studying for one of my dreaded accounting tests. Central provides me with 8 floors of cubicles hidden behind rows of stacks where I couldn’t even find myself if I tried and group study tables, which are much quieter than Buttrick’s, but still allow for some discussion about capital budgeting or the ethics of advertising to children. Central is also my preferred location for research papers because of its extensive book collection, over 3.4 million all together, including the aforementioned ones that I like to hide behind, and easily accessed computers and printers. I still haven’t found my favorite desk in Central yet; it usually depends on who I’m studying with, how much I want to wander, and how lost I want to get, but I am working on it.
Now these are just my favorite study spaces on campus, if you ask any of my friends or classmates I am sure they would have a very different answer for you. So I encourage you when you get to Vanderbilt to take advantage of them all and find the ones that work best for your style of studying!