Student Body and
Accommodations
The Pace NYC campus has a relatively large student body compared
to the size of the "campus". The
Financial District of Manhattan becomes the campus in itself but even with the
spread out buildings it still has smaller facilities for students. As college students many people need a quiet
but open place to study and pace is able to offer a few options in terms of
these environments. On the lower level of the school there is a large room
called the Student Union and it is used for presentations and events but when
not in use, many students use it as a quiet place to relax while also doing
work. This room is often used for group
meetings and projects as well. On the
first floor, there is a room called the Birnbaum Library Setters Lounge that is
half library and half cafeteria. Students
eat and study casually mostly during lunch hours. This room tends to clear out on the weekends
and when there is more space in the actual library. The Henry Birnbaum Library at Pace is located
on the first floor directly across the hall from the cafeteria, which also is
an environment people frequent for a quick meal and study.
Library Purposes and Uses
The library itself is split into sections, which allows the flow
of rhetoric and behavior to naturally separate itself. The library tends to be constantly
full during certain parts of the day especially during lunch hours and a 4-6pm
period block. In the very front there is a separate room that students
call “the fish bowl” because it is structured with windows on every side and it
is more of a common room than a library. On the first floor there are
computers lined up and these are mostly all taken on any given day. Behind the computers there are 5 printers
that are available to students and there can be lines of at least 20 students
waiting to use them on any given day as well.
If you consider the timing and the fact that many of the students don’t
own a printer in their apartment or dorm, it makes sense why there is such a
dramatic line. It’s clear that people
are okay to wait in this line because they have come to expect it. Upstairs
on the second floor of the library you immediately walk into the public area
where there are shared tables. This is surely the loudest section of the
library. As you continue to the
outskirts of the library, including the first floor, everything becomes silent.
The separation in this small library is mostly successful because these
sections are separated by the bookshelves, which end up blocking out a lot of
the sound and commotion
Student Behavior
Student Behavior
A library, known to be place of silence, studying, and research,
has become a lounge and social area as well.
It is set up so that people have the option to do both. In a school setting it is much more easily a
place to be social because a lot of the time you have to be working with other
people. Also, considering we are in a
college setting we can assume that people are making new friends and wanting to
maintain those friendships. Studying can
become a little bit better when people you enjoy are surrounding you. Although this is true, many people prefer to have privacy and remove all distractions which is made completely possible here at Pace. The majority of the library is a silent section and basically everyone is able to have their own "cubby". Even though this is most of the library It is very hard to find seats in these areas sometimes especially during midterms and finals seasons.
