It’s Thursday, the week before finals, and you finally have all your semester projects and papers completed and turned in.  

You finally relax and lean back into your dorm chair and check your phone to see that you completed your academic marathon at 10:42 p.m. A notification pops up; it’s a text from a classmate in your 8 a.m. class: “I just finished my paper for Dr. Professor’s class.” 

It hits you: You aren’t done with all your projects because you apparently have a paper due tomorrow at morning that you completely forgot about.   

As you open your laptop to start writing, your roommate comes back and asks if you could leave so he and his girlfriend could celebrate the semester.  

 So, now you have just over nine hours to write the paper, and you can’t use your room to write, so now you must find somewhere to find a seat, a table and an outlet to plug in at.   

First, you try the lobby of your dorm, but there’s a group of people in there very loudly playing pool and chatting about classes.  

The library is the next stop, but lo and behold, the library now closes at 10, meaning you’re almost an hour too late.  

Then you go to the dreaded 24-hour-lounge. 

Yes it’s always open and it has vending machines, but it has the downside of bright overhead lights, no good furniture and the overwhelming feeling that is just creepy enough that you’re never able to fully focus on your work.   

Seeing as how you have no other choices on campus open past 10 p.m., you give in and set your laptop at an open table, and grab an energy drink from the vending machine to lock in and get ready for your all-nighter writing session in one of the worst study spots on campus, but the only one available at all times of night.  

While this story is completely hypothetical, it is a version of a story many on campus have lived through, needing somewhere to do work late at night and not having anywhere that properly works other than the 24-hour lounge.  

Let’s face it; it’s not the best place to study.  

The hum from the vending machines is just loud enough to need earbuds, and there are absolutely no barriers separating you from anyone else in the lounge. It’s just an awkward space.   

The 24-hour lounge is a great idea, having an area to be open all hours of the night on a college campus, allowing students to work on their projects around the clock.  

 However, it has terrible execution.  

The bathroom still has wood panel walls reminiscent of the 1970s, which isn’t even the worst part of the bathroom. It feels like it is constantly out of order.  

After Union hours, if you are in the 24-hour lounge and need to use the restroom, the closest open restroom would be in your dormitory, assuming you live on campus.  

The aura of the 24-hour lounge is the lowest of any area on campus.  

The always-on overhead lights are not only a nuisance but also genuinely make the room hard to work in. They are overstimulating but still somehow find a way to not adequately light the area.  

The bulletin board features sun-bleached posters that haven’t been changed in years. The vending machine lineup includes a coffee station that no longer works and looks like it was last touched 20 years ago.  

Quite frankly, the current condition of the 24-hour lounge requires a lot of fixing before it can be considered a good study spot.  

EIU has countless solid study spots, in the library, in academic buildings, in the union, but when it hits 10 p.m., suddenly the countless spots turn into three: the dorm room, the dorm lobby and the 24-hour lounge.  

 The lobby is a place for students to gather, talk and play games, but it is not a study spot. With a roommate, the dorm room is often out of the question, leaving only the far from perfect 24-hour lounge.  

EIU should invest either in their workers and allow the library to be open later hours without overworking their already diminished staff or invest in better study areas on campus.   

The 24-hour lounge does not cut it. College students don’t stop studying or working on homework at 10 o’clock, so why do their study areas stop working then?  

Simply put, EIU needs more late-night study spaces, whether that is opening some other lounges, returning the library to last semester’s hours or changing the 24-hour lounge to be a space more conducive to studying and working.   

John Slater can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].