I am going to take you on a wondrous journey through the halls of the Robert W. Woodruf Library. For those of you who are adept at the art of Mean Girls references, I will create a sort of lunchtime clique map, if you will. Please try to keep up.
I will begin with the entrance level at Floor 2. This floor was created for those students who want to feel like they can replace a friendship with Maggie’s Mason for one with the library security officers. This breed of studier goes in and out of the entryway, scanning their Emory cards as often as a Longstreet Means resident does at Zaya. They frequently chat up said security officers and get VIP access to private classrooms for exam week. #WhatWouldLibGuardsDo?
Let’s go down a flight of stairs to Floor 1, the place to satisfy your thirst for knowledge with a Hazelnut Coffee. Here, you will find Marketing groups meeting in the most notoriously loud areas of the library, hungry freshman who missed the Duc hours and need a mediocre sandwich, and studiers who frequent the library halls searching for excuses to tear themselves away from their studies. It’s like those gym goers that spend more time finding the perfect Swedish House playlist on Pandora than they do on any piece of equipment. Nevertheless, they can still say that they were in attendance.
Now we will go up two floors, using the stairs (don’t even think about taking that elevator), to Floor 3: the social floor. This floor is so high in demand – unquestionably deemed the chic-est floor at the library – that it even needs a Floor 3.5 to house all those vying for third floor real estate. If you think about it, the third floor is very diverse in providing the studier with every type of studying. You have your techie research classrooms for students who seem like they are in Grad School and really no one knows what on earth they are doing. Then you have the central computer and table area where the studier will be chowing down on their Pad Tai delivered directly to the Carlos Museum while simultaneously working on their Spanish 301 essay. Floor 3.5 gets quieter, but is really just a glorified version of central Floor 3, that is, until you reach the reading room.
I believe the reading room deserves its own separate category. If not, sorry I’m not sorry. The reading room houses a variety of studiers, from the Pre-Med fanatics, to the Frat Bros testing out their new Frat Tanks in one of the least air-conditioned rooms on campus, to the essay writer who can’t quite comprehend the idea of typing without attacking their keyboard. Oh yeah, and that kid who forgets to shut off their p.m. alarm…on what planet?
Moving up to Floor 4: The offshore storage for our tuition dollars. Here, you will find the media lab with a cornucopia of laptops (Mac or PC), iPads and Nooks, chargers, headphones, and essentially every possible toy you can think of playing with to avoid doing work. Thank you housing fee for letting me rent a TI-89 at the lib.
Floor 5: Not important.
Floors 6 and 7: The trendiest set of stacks ever. In this set of stacks, you will not just hear the glorious sound of a textbook pages flipping, but you will also hear the clacking of Adderall bottles flipping up and down as these chic studiers prepare for their upcoming school-ish battles. Every well-dressed girl who is not spotted on the third floor is hiding out here for a swanky, more serious study session.
As we continue to move up in flights, you have my permission to take the elevator. We are now getting into the heart of the stacks. As this occurs, the chair upholstery will get more and more drab and the faint whispers of miserable studiers will become more and more faint. If you wish to hide from the world, not open anything in any form of plastic wrap due to risk of cosmic library bad luck, and actually study, the upper stacks are the place to be.
I hope this separation of study time and social hour helps you study in style, or shall I say in stylish locations. Good luck on your educational journey.