Our campus at SUNY Binghamton has many attributes, from the amazing classes to great campus activities. But even with this, there are some problems that all students can agree with that should be brought to light. Here are some things that should definitely be changed at Binghamton.
The food available in the four dining halls at SUNY Binghamton and the Marketplace are not the worst. In the beginning of the semester it’s completely fine. But after a while, the options get pretty limited, and you have to get creative with what is available. Sometimes I will walk down to the dining hall, and turn right back around once I realize the exact same things are down there. I think there should be more options available to us to help fight the monotony.
Sure, we have access to Bartle for studying, and if you can get a group study room during finals you are insanely lucky, but it’s not always the best environment if you want to get work done. There are always a lot of people filling up all the study spots in there, and around the end of the semester there are many people who just camp out there. Unless you can find some other secret space to study on campus, there isn’t a great availability for places other than in your room, and that can be disruptive. It would be very helpful if there was something else available to students as an area for quiet studying.
Here at Binghamton, not all dorms are created equal. Some of the dorms are much older (Hinman and College in the Woods) compared to others (Mountainview, Dickinson and Newing). Although I love living in College in the Woods, the lighting in the buildings absolutely sucks if you want study and not strain your eyes by the end of the night. And Hinman in general is just old compared to the newer dorm communities. Step into a Mountainview room and you will fully understand why the housing isn’t the same wherever you live.
Not going to lie, some of the bathrooms here at SUNY Binghamton make me nervous. I don’t like the thought of stepping into the communal bathrooms without shoes on, let alone the bathroom in my own suite. They get cleaned pretty often, but there are some disrespectful people who always manage to make some kind of mess in there. And the bathrooms around campus are even worse, especially in the library and lecture hall. If people could be a little more respectful, that would be fantastic.
The housing process for dorms has really bothered me so far. Housing assignments go up really early in the year (too early for you to really even know what you will want to do next year). A lot of people get the short end of the stick when it comes to housing, because literally everyone is rushing around, trying to find someone to room with and to find an amazing room. If the housing was later in the year, I think a lot less conflicts would happen in friend groups, and just in general.
When trying to figure out what classes to take, one of the most annoying things is the fact that for some classes, there are seats set aside for incoming freshman, or a lot of seats set aside for strictly majors. I, and many other people, have encountered problems with this. If you want to take a class and it has these kinds of restrictions, it’s harder for the people who really need to take these classes (for reasons other than being in a certain major) to have a chance at getting into them. And it’s even worse for the people who have waited to take a class for a while, and can’t get in because all the seats left are for just freshmen. There should be some way to make this process fair for those who need to take certain classes.
Whenever it’s incredibly hot outside, expect the heating to be turned up in your room. The dorms seem to always be way too hot to handle, and even when it’s the middle of the winter, expect to have to open a window to avoid overheating. This really turns into a problem at all times of the year, and can make it difficult to sleep. Then the conflict begins; if you want to open the window to lower the temperature, you then have to deal with the noisy people outside.
Doing laundry in the dorms at SUNY Binghamton could be so much easier than it is. There are a very limited number of washer and dryers (half of which are broken). People love to take your stuff out of the washers and not put it in driers, so it sits there for everyone to move around. And when you do manage to snag a dryer for your clothes, it takes more than one cycle to completely dry everything. Don’t even think of putting the setting on the dryer anywhere below medium if you don’t want soaking wet clothes after one cycle. And even through all of this, people love to go through your loads if you aren’t there watching them, and you have to be careful because they may take some of your stuff. This happened to me the first week when I left my things in there for too long, and since then I never dare to leave my clothes without supervision.
In fall semester of 2015, the campus had four Night Owls, also known as NOWL. NOWL serves food into the early hours of the morning after the dining halls close, making it easy for everyone to be able to get food. During winter break, the NOWLs for Hinman and College in the Woods were closed, leaving just the other two at Appalachian and C4. Now getting food takes a lot more effort, and you can’t get the amazing milkshakes from College in the Woods or the quesadillas from Hinman. This is something everyone would like to have fixed ASAP.
The gym here at SUNY Binghamton has many problems in my opinion. First, it’s always overcrowded. I dread the thought of even going because of how many people I know I’ll have to deal with. Second, you can’t bring anything into the workout space with you if it will be put on the ground. Because of this, you need to put your things in a locker, most of which are already filled. The whole process of dealing with the gym just makes me want to forget I try to be active anyway, and not go in the first place.
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