Although everyone complains about the culture of Hopkins campus -- the lack of good parties, the intense amount of work, the international students destroying every imaginable non-humanities curve -- I figure we aren't really looking in the right places to open up socially. I propose a simple solution that will solve one of the woes of the Hopkins campus. Keep the MSE library open 24 hours a day.
Every good student knows that the most social place on campus is the library. Instead of trying to create more avenues for dance parties or social events, the best thing that we can do is encourage more all-nighters from our student body.
Now I can already imagine the outraged response to this point. Some of the more narrow-minded members of the student body might say the Hut is a nice enough place to study for 24 hours.
Unfortunately for anyone who has studied in the Hut, it is the epitome of the Hobbesian state of nature. If only Hobbes, who wrote that life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short," could see BMEs frothing at the mouth, pre-meds setting aflame their fellow students' books and 40 students scratching and clawing their way for the use of the single unisex bathroom. While my assessment might be a bit hyperbolic, the Hut still leaves plenty to be desired.
The Hut lacks any sort of reasonable climate control. Instead, large loud fans disturb any sort of study atmosphere, as if guarding your books from undernourished BMEs did not make studying difficult enough. Rats have become an occasional nuisance, having given up on the food at Terrace. Finally, the Hut is almost always crowded and noisy due to a dearth of space and desks. Because of this many "Huttites" are incredibly belligerent and rather uncivilized.
One particularly nasty tactic I have seen is the "colonization" of a table. Even if one is lucky enough to find an open table, sometimes a much larger group will crowd out the table until one is forced to move off of one's claimed territory. Perhaps a microcosm of U.S. foreign policy, this type of behavior only increases the perceptions of Hopkins as a cutthroat school.
MSE Library, on the other hand, is much more kind and gentle to the harried Hopkins student's soul, having full climate control and better overall tables and individual desks, not to mention a much broader selection of books and periodicals. The solution again is clear: to open up MSE for those who find themselves consistently going to the Hut. Having discussed this already with some heads of MSE including Jerry Hicks, a budget officer at the Library Dean's Office, they find this solution not too unreasonable. There is always a decent sized group of people studying in the darkness and evil of the Hut, and it would not be too impractical to move these students to MSE.
An argument could arise that many of these raucous "Hut" students would merely transfer their bellicosity to the confines of MSE. However, the presence of legitimate security (rather than a sleepy student monitor) would help maintain calm. Furthermore, the MSE can have a more relaxing effect to those that come uncivilized from the Hut. Simple things like the air conditioning and better computers can help make the studying environment a lot more learning-friendly.
Previously, we have demonstrated the ability to open MSE for 24 hours during reading periods, although obviously at some cost. Nonetheless, we can choose to leave M level open 24 hours and close the rest of the library down. It wouldn't be too expensive to have a security monitor posted. If cleaning and maintenance became an issue, we could maintain normal weekend library hours to leave aside some time for cleaning.
These types of suggestions have been taken in by the library directors and are being considered. They are mulling over whether to keep the library open for an hour longer, until 3 a.m. However, I say the 3 a.m. solution is insufficient for two reasons. The first is that many already feel that MSE is the more ideal place to study. Why force others to study in an obviously inferior space? Secondly, the "walk of shame" from MSE to the Hut at 2 a.m. is something I feel no future Hopkins student should ever have to make. To top all this off, Gilman will be shut down soon for renovation. Let's move on this issue and make MSE's resources available at all hours.
--Kane Kim is a junior economics major from Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
