The new Smith Campus Center is FINALLY here, and I have a few things to say about it.
The Pros
1. There is furniture for everyone’s style of studying, from high desks and chairs, to couches. The Smith Campus Center offers long tables to share, short tables, reclining chairs, couches, and plush stools.
(photo by the Harvard Crimson)
2. The restaurants and cafes are great! If you are working through meal times, or you need a caffeine boost, there’s a selection of food and drinks around.
3. Many of the restaurants and cafes take, or will soon take, Crimson Cash.
The Cons
1. It seems like I’m not the only one who loves this new, trendy spot, since it is always packed. If you are the kind of person who wants to work at your own desk or couch, you likely have to do a few laps around the space to find a spot. Usually if you wait it out, a table or couch will vacate within 10-15 minutes. When it’s other students, it’s reasonable, but when tables are taken up by stragglers visiting the Square, it can get frustrating.
2. The school hasn’t figured out what kind of space they want the Smith Campus Center to be. It’s the perfect place to study, most of the time, but every sometimes you walk in and the space has been dominated by a noisy event, which makes the immediate areal null for working. If the Smith Campus Center is a social space, then make it a social space. But right now it is operating like a study space that can become unusable at anytime.
3. Most of it closes too early. 10 pm is an early cut off for the diverse spaces of the bottom two floors, and for anyone who knows the value of an all night study session or pset space, the midnight close time of the top floor is still too soon. Thank goodness for the second floor collaborative space is open 24 hours (although they should advertise this fact better!) It would be awesome if we could have more of the Smith Campus Center 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, like Lamont.
4. The cafes and take out places are generally pretty pricey and there are no student run cafes or food places, which means you can’t cash in on your Board Plus while you work at the Smith Science Center.