Somewhere in the depths of Tech lies what is basically my oasis in the desert of a long day of classes.
Say it with me: Tech Café.
The problem is, I just found it. Sad, I know. Shocking, yes, I’m aware. But somehow, despite having at least one class every year on North Campus – or as I like to call it, Where-Christina’s-GPA-Goes-To-Die – I had never found Tech Café.
And it wasn’t for lack of trying. For four years, I’ve noticed how people left class in Tech Auditorium or LR2 and returned with food and precious coffee. I’ve been down in the basement of that building. I’ve been upstairs. I once wandered for 10 minutes in the middle of class and when I came back, someone else was sitting in my seat.
He had coffee. I did not.
For those of you who don’t know, Tech Café is right behind LR2. The fact that I managed to overlook it for four years is pretty pathetic.
Faced with my ignorance of Tech, I decided to track down another spot on campus I’ve never set foot in.
Everything I’ve heard about Tech Library (or the Seeley G. Mudd Library for Science and Engineering) sounds like the stuff of student lore. We all have engineer friends who’ve spent days on end studying for midterms and finishing problem sets in there. My friends studying biology or chemistry have disappeared countless times to play with their little ball-and-stick sets (or as they like to call them, organic molecule models).
Either “I’m studying at Tech Library” is code for “Huge raging party in Tech,” or our friends’ workloads really are that ridiculous.
Well, I can tell you one thing: They’re not going to the library for aesthetics. I’ve always thought the Main Library’s decor discouraged studying. There are maybe eight comfortable chairs in the building outside the lounge. Hard chairs might work for memorizing math formulas, but they’re not the best for trying to read Shakespeare.
Still, Tech Library’s a little worse. Oh, it’s definitely quiet, but the colors of the books on the shelves are loud enough to make up for that. The stairs are creepy. The elevator is ancient.
And again, it’s hidden. Seriously, engineers, what’s with all the secret rooms and tunnels?
Unfortunately, whatever it is, it’s not a library that turns into a disco after midnight. Or a den of iniquity. Do you guys even make out in the stacks?
It’s just a library, and kind of a letdown at that. Where were all of you pulling your hair out? Where was the obligatory kid muttering to himself and then having a nervous breakdown? Where was the enormous ball-and-stick model?
Apparently, there are some things at Northwestern that I really never needed to experience. My South Campus-loving self really didn’t need to know that the building I’ve walked by about 1,000 times really houses the library, or that in the middle of the day, Tech Library is still full.
Some things should just be left as mysteries.
Medill senior Christina Alexander can be reached at [email protected].
