Reserving a library room on the Colorado Mesa University (CMU) campus can be quite the hassle, as one must deal with app glitches, time constraints and the high demand of the rooms.
Tomlinson Library holds 30 rooms that are available for reservations. These rooms may only be reserved for a maximum of two hours per day by the same student.
When living with multiple other people in a house, things can get loud very quickly. This can make it hard to get school work done. Reserving my own personal library room allows me to get away from any distractions, and encourages me to get my work done faster.
Reserving a library room, however, has proved to be more difficult than it should be, as it seems like they are quickly becoming unavailable, especially as we get closer to the end of the semester.
The most common way a student can reserve a room is through the library website. Once there, you can pick what room you want and at what time.
Depending on the time of day, I have had to reserve library rooms four hours in advance in order to make sure I can get a room. This also invites another problem of having other students in your room, even though you have it reserved.
When I was a freshman, I would just let whoever was in my room stay there because I felt bad kicking them out. As I started to take more difficult classes that require more work, I realized how important getting a room was.
I built up the courage and would politely ask anyone in my room to leave, as studying in a library room became a normal lifestyle for me.
Granted, a lot of these issues can’t really be fixed by Tomlinson Library because it has more to do with the students. This is why I have developed some alternatives, just in case I cannot get a room.
For starters, some majors (such as engineering or computer science) have their own buildings, in which you can reserve a room to study. One of these buildings is Confluence Hall. I don’t think a lot of students knew this, so it is important to spread the word amongst the major.
Another alternative that I enjoy is group study sessions, and these don’t even have to be at the library. Going somewhere off-campus can be refreshing and a good ice-breaker for meeting other people in your classes.
One of the most important things I’ve learned is to find a group of classmates that you can study with. When you are in a group, everyone helps keep each other on track.
As we reach the end of the semester, these library rooms are going to be extremely difficult to get into, so it is important for students to have a back up plan.
