Construction Conundrum
My first experience at LSC was nothing short of running up the walls. I mean that literally, I missed running into a temporary construction wall by inches. When I went to pick up my books, an advisor handed me a map and sent me on my way. After staring at the colorful sheet for a few minutes, I found the number class I was supposed to be in. I went on my way towards the seemingly invisible classroom and found out that the first connective hallway was boarded up. So, as I rounded the corner to the second hallway I was met with plywood and sawdust. After my near faceplant experience, I went along to the rest of my classrooms which were about as difficult to find and dampened my overall view on the school.
My next problem was finding places that weren’t listed on my schedule. Opportunities such as the TLC, Hawks Landing, and even the library. And the map they gave me was essentially useless, it listed the separate “buildings,” but not any efficient ways to get there. I can never tell whether I am officially in the M block or the L block. It feels like the building was Frankensteined together and the sutures were not aligned correctly. One section feels like it jumped straight off an architect’s brain, but another feels like it has not had a fresh coat of paint since I was old enough to walk. All of it is arranged in a way that just feels slightly off. For one the T building. It is technically listed as the third floor on the map, but telling where the stairs or doors are is close to impossible. For a while I thought I was the only one who felt like I was wandering an engineered maze. The building feels beautiful from the outside, especially the Hawks Landing towards the front, but as soon as I wandered further in, I felt a bit lost.
None of this even touches the parking situation at LSC. It feels like every other day an email springs into my inbox telling me where I can and more often cannot park. As if I didn’t already park in the back of the lot and hike my way up the inclined sidewalk. This should only get worse as the sky downpours snow on the campus. Short of getting to LSC hours before my first class I have not figured out a workable solution. This made me feel more isolated than before.
The construction is not only causing navigation problems. The constant hammering on the walls has made concentrating on anything difficult. During my Comp I class in the early few weeks the pounding on the wall made listening to my professor hard and trying to write even harder. This has been a project that the school has been working on for months and it was supposed to end before students came back into mainstream classes. This did not occur as planned so using any student help resources has just gotten that much harder. An activity we did in Comp I, the Student Success Day scavenger hunt, helped me out immensely. It showed me where relocated services were and introduced me to places I would not have known existed. I have a lot of good things to say about that specific activity and I believe that any student who is feeling out of place should make their own type of scavenger hunt to find any areas that seem illusive.
Although this activity helped but it could not do all the work for me. LSC has many other resources that I haven’t found, let alone accessed. For example, the library or the room being used as a book storage room. I wanted to do some research for one of my classes, but when I walked in, I felt more confused than before. Everyone was very welcoming, but I got the sense they were not exactly happy with the overdue construction. This was the first moment that I realized that I was not the only person feeling like a mouse in a maze. This all made me feel isolated, like I was the only one feeling this way. Talking to some of my peers on campus made me feel a little less lost. Most people were as confused with the layout as I was and still sometimes am. I might still sometimes almost walk into walls, but I am getting better at avoiding them, even if I still don’t know how to get to the T Building.
