Rider University - Shadow Yearbook (Lawrenceville, NJ)

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'W'-n. 'if-i 2 Libraries Are For Studyingg by Paul E. Lakeman On almost every college campus there is usually a set of buildings that are set apart from the rest of the campus. These buildings are commonly known as dormitories. These buildings are set apart from the academic buildings because of a simple fact. Inside a dorm, there is usually little trace of anything academic. There is an occasional book lying around and even some that are open, but for the most part such a thing is hard to find. Now it may appear that the students have no desire to study and really don't care. But on closer exam- ination of life in the dorms, the observer will notice that it is not necessarily so. He will also notice something else. It is impossible to study in the dorms. The reasons for this are many but among the best is the plain fact that most dorms are as quiet as Penn Sta- tion at rush hour. Sort of a dull roar. The cement walls carry sound extremely well and the halls would be ex- cellent for an echo chamber. But there are other places where relative quiet can be obtained so this fact of dorm life can be overcome. But other facts can't. For instance, there is no other place to take a shower but in the dorms. And when twenty guys before you have already taken a shower and left you with water the temperature of the ocean in winter, you begin to under- stand that there are problems to living in a dorm. And there are others. For instance, Sleeping. There are vari- ous obstacles one must overcome before he can get to sleep. First is the noise and as said before, this can be overcome with a little ingenuity. But there is not much that can be done about a sick mattress. lt is kind of like laying on a sack of potatoes. A lot of lumps. You just have to find the most comfortable set of lumps and you've solved the problem. Some students have spent half of their college years trying to find those lumps. After accepting that dorms are not for studying or sleeping, a student can really get to feel at home there. And he may eventually find out that they are not too bad after all. But he will snap back to reality when he meets the food lines head on. Usually he has to walt 20 or 25 min- utes for the main fare of the day and when he finally 62 L . FQ:

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volved in campus activities. lt is also an attempt to change the image that we are higher up or more ex- ulted than everybody else. So the Greeks at Rider have and will continue to try to get more into the mainstream of the college commu- nity-and also to attract more members. They have for- ward ideas and are trying to get them into operation. But there must also be a willingness on the part of the independents to wipe away the stereotype of the Greeks as the elitists of the campus who have no time for the peons. It is a step in a different direction that the fraternities and sororities are trying to turn into a gallop. se l J' 1 ! l A

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Dorms Are For Everything Else does get it, wish he had never gotten on line to begin with. And the quiet peaceful dinner is a thing of the past. Usually it is eat and get out. Gobble as fast as you can and go. But when you get back to the dorm, you're usually hungry again. But you can't raid the refrig cause there isn't one. Here you learn that unless you have a small appetite living in the dorms can also be expensive. But dorm life can also be more than just aggravation. lt can be a lot of fun. All night rap sessions often high- light an otherwise dull evening. They expose anything from political views down to funny stories. The dorm parties often turn into something wilder than anything ever imaginable. Beek soaked mattresses or stoned bodies just laying all over the place, are common. Weekends often bring about a curious change in the timing of a dorm. The early hours of the morning are not disrupted by someone shaving or taking a shower. No alarm clocks rattle through the walls telling you that the guy next door has an early class. And for some rea- son on the weekends very few people stay. The hustle of the week slows down as the dust settles and the weekend sets in. Weekends also propogate the great delight among students-intervisitation. While intervisitation is in effect all week as well as the weekend, it takes on added im- portance Friday, Saturday and Sunday. A chance to be together with nothing to worry about and just to enjoy yourself. The only bad thing is Monday morning. The harsh reality of facing an 8 on Monday is just too much for some to cope with. So they don't. They fall back asleep until they feel they can face it. But dorm life is seldom what anyone experiencing it for the first time expected it to be. But they soon learn to accept it for what it is and try as best they can to sweat it out on hot nights and freeze it out on the cold. A sort of lesson in group frustration. The consolation lies in the fact that you can laugh at someone ex- periencing that wierd phenomenon called dorm life and understand why they don't understand what it is all about. 'W 63