Some people at Tufts absolutely HATE Tisch library. They loathe having to go there to print something out; they feel suffocated and sad when they walk through the doors; they avoid it at every cost. These people would rather study anywhere than Tisch, and don’t actually know about any part of the building other than the reading room because they don’t dare venture further than that.
I am not one of those people. I personally love going to the library, and I think Tisch deserves a little more appreciation than it gets. I love how it has an aura of productivity, and how you are pretty much guaranteed to bump into someone you know. Call me crazy, but I think Tisch is actually a great social spot on campus, and is a way to catch up with friends (the purple hallways is way too loud to get any real work done anyway…). I love how people adopt their own favorite spots in the various sections within the library, from the purple hallway to the fish bowl to the Fares Tower to the basement to study room 123C. My friends have pretty much all learned at this point that if they need to find me, all they have to do is walk to the cubicles between group study and the purple hallway, and 99% of the time I’ll be there. Convenient!
Studying in college is just a fact of life, and since we can’t exactly avoid the library all the time (unless you are seriously determined to study elsewhere), I’ve learned to conquer it instead. I make each cubicle I sit in my own little home, complete with ordered food, a blanket (this really has happened, more than once), music, and me curled up in the chair (half the time in my pajamas). It’s all about perspective—the library can be a very somber place for someone with a very somber attitude. But if you go into the library and embrace it, it can become a great little place to get stuff done, eat food, and meet friends.