Recently the Vanguard ran a piece on the new classroom in the School of Business Administration, and it made me jealous because, for the most part, Portland State’s classrooms are terrible. The business school has its own operating funds, but I wish the rest of the university would follow suit and bring its classrooms into the 21st century.
THAT’S WHAT’S THE MATTERRecently the Vanguard ran a piece on the new classroom in the School of Business Administration, and it made me jealous because, for the most part, Portland State’s classrooms are terrible. The business school has its own operating funds, but I wish the rest of the university would follow suit and bring its classrooms into the 21st century.
Corinna Scott/VANGUARD STAFF
The desks are a big a part of the problem.
I feel like desks have gotten smaller and smaller every year since elementary school. I remember, as a kid, being able to spread out papers and books all over my desk. In middle school they got a little smaller, and I started having to pile things on top of each other. In high school, I was down to generally having to have one item on my desk at a time.
Now I’m lucky if I can fit anything on my desk.
My laptop is carefully balanced to prevent it from tipping off the side; I rarely can have a textbook fully open, and getting stuck with the weird left-handed desk means taking notes is an uphill battle. Obviously this is a prime example of a first-world problem, but I hate how disorganized these tiny desks make me feel.
Having space for my stuff helps me stay focused because I’m not worrying about switching between having my laptop on the desk and having the textbook in front of me.
The seats, however, are as bad as or worse than the desks.
I’ve said it before: I fully expect these seats to be the cause of my future chronic back pain. I can’t comprehend why students have to sit 2–3 hours in hard wooden seats, besides the fact that they’re cheap. They’re uncomfortable and loud and not particularly conducive to learning.
More classroom maintenance would be great, too. Last spring, my first class of the morning was held in a moldy classroom in the basement of Neuberger Hall. I spent most of that term sneezing.
There are also a lot of classrooms in Cramer Hall with water damage. I don’t think all of our classrooms need to be modeled after the business school’s learning studio or anything, but it’d be nice if they looked like they’ve been updated since 1970.
By comparison, all of the classrooms I’m in this term are really nice: cushioned seats, tables instead of desks, or at least desks that are wide enough to fit things on them. They’re laid out in half circles, which makes discussion-based classes go a lot more smoothly.
Uniform resources in the classroom is a must-have: All classrooms should have a whiteboard, a computer, a projector and a doc cam. The university has done a fairly good job with that; as a matter of fact, tech problems are usually the fault of the user rather than the technology (for the most part).
And where, you might ask, should the university get all this money to remodel classrooms? Well, like I’ve said before, I’d much rather have new classrooms and desks than new athletic centers and student unions.
PSU spends a ton of money on new buildings, on sustainable this and sustainable that, but our classrooms are so outdated. It makes a lot more sense to me to improve the things that get the most use by students, and those are definitely the classrooms.
I’m not saying PSU’s classrooms have made me incapable of learning, or that it’s a major crisis. But we could have much nicer classrooms, and I do think it would make a positive impact on education.
We should always improve where we can, and our classrooms should be at the top of the list.
