Tufts University - Jumbo Yearbook (Medford, MA)

Page 33 text:

Somewhere between dorm living and off-campus apartment living lies co-op living. At Tufts, that means Lat¬ in Way or Hillside Apartments. While people in co-ops are living on campus, in some ways they are more on their own than other people in University housing. Although there are many ad¬ vantages to this, at the same time come a number of drawbacks. The best part of co-op living is free¬ dom—freedom to do what you want, when you want, with whom you want. There are no RAs or RDs, and no qui¬ et hours. It ' s all up to you to decide how to run your life. You have more privacy than in a dorm, so if you want to be alone, you can seal yourself off from everyone else. If you want to be around other people, you can do that, too. Along with a co-op comes a kitch¬ en. You can use this to cook your meals if you want to. On the other hand, you can just use it for snacks, and stay on the meal plan. You can use your own dishes, your own pots and pans, and your own recipes. It ' s like taking a big chunk of home with you. At the same time, you can develop much closer relationships with your fellow co-op dwellers. Since you ' re living together in an apartment, you come into closer contact than in a dorm. You can really get to know each other (of course you get to know the bad with the good). Co-op living, though, is a two-sided matter. With the freedom comes ad¬ ded responsibility. Without anyone to guide you, things can get out of hand. You may find your neighbor playing his stereo full blast at four in the morning, and there ' s nothing you can do about it if he refuses to turn it off. There ' s also the problem of isolation. In a dorm, there are hundreds of peo¬ ple to interact with, while in a co-op, you ' re likely never to see more than a few other people except going in and out the door. Let ' s hope you have friends who like to come over and vis¬ it. Living in a co-op also means more work. While having a kitchen is a lux¬ ury, doing the dishes is not. If things get dirty, you ' re on your own. Also, just cooking, if you decide to do that for yourself, can take quite a bit of time. What this means is that you can take the bad with the good. If you want to live in a place where you can do what you want, you have to be prepared to live with the conse¬ quences. In the case of co-op living, freedom means work. Freedom Means Work As Co-op Living Has Its Ups And Downs TOP: Living in a co-op helps one feel more at home. Apparently, the resident of this room feels at home in a tropical rain forest. ABOVE RIGHT: One of the major advantages of living in a co-op is the kitchen. Like many Hillside residents. Sue Silberman doesn ' t have to trudge to a dining hall in bad weather, but can eat her dinner right in her apartment. Of course, she has to cook it first. ABOVE LEFT: Leora Cope looks lost. However, that ' s understandable when trying to decipher the intricate numbering system of Hillside Apartments.

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TO STUDY OR NOT TO STUDY: That Is Not The Only Question Tufts students (with perhaps a few exceptions) don ' t pay $13,000 a year to come here and party. They come here to learn, and that means studying. Of course, not everyone studies in the same way. There are almost as many different ways of studying as there are people at Tufts. First there are those who choose to stay in their rooms. Some like it be¬ cause it is more comfortable (perhaps too comfortable—that bed can be aw¬ fully inviting, leading to one of those ten-minute naps that lasts three and a half hours). Others say they work bet¬ ter with their stereos on. How having WBCN shaking the walls helps them read classic British novels remains unclear. ' mm . mm RIGHT: Tufts supplies each student with a desk, and this person is taking advantage of it. Of course, Tufts also supplied him with a bed, which offers the tempting possibility of a nap only a few feet away. This is often a problem when studying in your room. ABOVE: Wessell Library offers a quiet environment for study, assuming you can find a seat. Around exam time, this is very difficult indeed. TOP: On nice days, the library is a great place to study, but not inside. These two students find that they can at least enjoy the sun while doing their work. 30 For those who want to get away from their dorms, to escape noise and interruption, or with the thought that a less homey environment will force them to work harder, there are a num¬ ber of options. The most obvious is the library. There, they can go to the Reserve Room, where they will likely get even less done than back in their rooms. Downstairs, they can isolate themselves in carrels, where they may get a bit more done, at least until the hypnotic buzz of the flourescent lights lulls them to sleep. Finally, there is the Gott Room, where the tru¬ ly dedicated students find study space. Finally, there is the nice-day alter¬ native. This usually means pretend¬ ing to study outside, while really star¬ ing off into space, or at other would- be studiers, while enjoying the breeze and the sun. Faced with such complex decisions over where to study, many people just play some Frisbee, and de¬ cide later.

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Tufts ' Finest Get Some Help Fall this year at Tufts found a new group of men in blue working here. In addition to the usual Tufts finest, the administration brought in Wells Fargo security guards on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights to replace last year ' s un¬ paid student security. On the other nights, students still sit, but they are paid $3.65 an hour. In order to be al¬ lowed to sit security, they had to go through a one hour course to learn ever¬ ything from how to write down names to how to deal with the less-than-desirable guests who show up at the dorm. For students wishing to visit a dorm, this meant changes. Originally, the plan was that in order to visit someone, you would have to stop at the security desk and call the person using the Ma Bell phone there (what you would do to visit a person without a phone they did not say. Perhaps these people would be con¬ demned to eternal loneliness under the plan). Then the person would come down to the desk and escort you back to his or her room. Unfortunately (or fortu¬ nately, depending on how you look at it), the phones were not installed in time, supposedly because of the phone strike. As of mid-October, there were still no phones, despite the fact that the strike had ended almost two months earlier. Because of this, an alternate plan went into effect. Now students visiting a dorm enter and approach the security desk. New, high desks were purchased, per¬ haps in order to make the guard seem more like a figure of authority, but someone forgot to buy high chairs to go with them (if used without them, the desks would likely give a somewhat un¬ imposing quality to the guard peering over the edge). The visitor then surren¬ dered his ID, and told the guard the person he wanted to visit. If a Wells Far¬ go guard was on duty, he usually asked the visitor to repeat the name three or four times before he got it, and then fumbled through the computer list for five or ten minutes until he verified that the person did indeed live there. If a stu¬ dent was sitting security, things usually went a bit more smoothly. Once inside, the visitor had to leave his ID at the desk, and pick it up before 3AM on weekends and 1AM on week¬ days. What would happen to him if he didn ' t was never specified, although ru¬ mors of various tortures abounded. While all this was a bit of an inconve¬ nience, it obviously meant the dorms were a safer place to live. If it seemed difficult for you to get into someone else ' s dorm, imagine what it must have been like for a person who shouldn ' t have gotten in. TOP: After a rough start, the Wells Fargo security guards, like this one in Metcalf, got to know the dorm residents and they fit right into life in the dorms. ABOVE: Wells Fargo provided floaters, like this guard working at Richardson House. They traveled from dorm to dorm to give the guards on duty breaks so they didn ' t have to work straight through the eight hour shifts. 32