How to kill three hours on campus?

January 8, 2004 2:48 PM

on thursdays, there's a 3 hour window between a pair of my classes. to save myself a half-hour drive home and another back, how can I amuse myself here on campus?
posted by mcsweetie to Education (23 answers total)

Use the excellent sports facilities. See what seminars are available on campus. Go for a walk in the nature reserve and feed whatever birdlife hasn't migrated. Dick around on Metafilter for an hour. Drink some beer. Eat some food. Work in the library.

(Of course all these things might not be possible on your campus, but they are on mine, so lets assume that its the same one in the absence of any other information.)
posted by biffa at 3:09 PM on January 8, 2004

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest you read a book.
posted by scody at 3:10 PM on January 8, 2004

Go read a book while wearing a wolf mask, puffing your pipe, and polishing your monocle.
posted by holloway at 3:12 PM on January 8, 2004

Do all of your writing assignments, on a laptop, at the closest coffee shop. You'll meet people, and you'll get all the college writing stuff out of the way. Dress like a beatnik and flirt with hippy chicks.

Or play some sort of coed sport. Because if you're not meeting the gender of your choice on a regular basis, you're wasting your college experience.
posted by mecran01 at 3:21 PM on January 8, 2004

Flirt with girls/boys. Find the museums on campus (natural history musems are always fun, especially if they have dioramas). Read current issues of magazines in the library. Flirt with girls/boys.
posted by rushmc at 3:21 PM on January 8, 2004

Wait---this is better.

Instead of thinking of college as a bunch of sucky classes and hoop jumping, think of it as X years to explore 2-3 really important questions.

Then during that break, map out your education and plan on how you can use each course you take to explore those quesions, goals or ideas.

Your classes will matter more to you, and you'll leave school with a real education. In theory. In four years you can become a world renowned expert, or at least a minor internet celebrity.
posted by mecran01 at 3:23 PM on January 8, 2004

what would you do at home that you can't do on the campus.
posted by andrew cooke at 3:37 PM on January 8, 2004

you could take up knitting or crocheting.
posted by sugarfish at 3:41 PM on January 8, 2004

Take a nap in the library. Arrange books and papers around you if the impression of studying is needed.
posted by Tacodog at 3:46 PM on January 8, 2004

I spent a lot of time in school just exploring campus. I don't know where you go to school, but UW-Madison has innumerable mazelike buildings, and it was always fun to pick a building at random and wander around. I ended up seeing everything from psychology experiments in progress to a nuclear reactor. The depths of the library stacks are always fun, too--deep in a subbasement I once ended up stumbling across a book printed by Benjamin Franklin.

Of course, all of the things above--napping, reading, going out and meeting people--are fun too.
posted by Inkslinger at 3:57 PM on January 8, 2004

If you don't need the time to study, then I assume you are a pretty sharp student. Maybe you could spend one of those hours volunteering to help someone else that doesn't have your innate abilities with educational institutions?

Inkslinger's one is pretty good, too. I did all that here at the University of Illinois, only I did it while skipping classes at high school.
posted by dglynn at 4:19 PM on January 8, 2004

I take it your 4.0 is a foregone conclusion.
posted by mischief at 4:27 PM on January 8, 2004

Go to the computer lab and read Metafilter ...
posted by carter at 4:40 PM on January 8, 2004

you could also ask a professor if you could sit in on whatever interesting class is going on during that time, or if there's an open studio you could make art...or what everyone else said : >
posted by amberglow at 5:08 PM on January 8, 2004

I had a gap one year and found the main library on campus had a ginormous magazine collection. I ended up reading every Print, Communication Arts, and How design magazine cover to cover going back five years. I was a science major at the time, but two days a week I looked forward to reading design magazines for hours on end.
posted by mathowie at 5:11 PM on January 8, 2004

I'm with Inkslinger. See how many roofs and basements you can get into. Then, after you execute the flirt with girls/boys part of the plan, you'll have somewere interesting to go to make out.
posted by majcher at 6:04 PM on January 8, 2004

Use the time to study, so you have your nights free to screw around and wander the halls of the dorm.
posted by gramcracker at 6:07 PM on January 8, 2004

Two words:
Glory hole.
posted by adamgreenfield at 7:42 PM on January 8, 2004

Get fresh with the ladies. Or dudes.
posted by Keyser Soze at 7:58 PM on January 8, 2004

Response by poster: studying won't be necessary this semester and I've allocated other times throughout the week for reading! I don't like strangers but I do I like the getting on roofs and into basements idea. I hope there won't be any disciplinary repercussions.
posted by mcsweetie at 8:36 PM on January 8, 2004

during any spares i have, i like to find a free newspaper (at my school, the major papers are distributed across from the general office at the school of business), buy a coffee, sit in one of many campus lounges and simply take time for myself (considering i'm always and continually on the go, this time is very much a luxury).

finding someone to bullshit with is also fun (as is walking through campus and finding even more student lounges to read papers in--there are lounges everywhere!)
posted by lumiere at 2:26 AM on January 9, 2004

If takes you an hour to get there and back, you still get two hours at home. Personally, I'd go home.
posted by Orange Goblin at 2:33 AM on January 9, 2004

Go to the frickin' gym. You'll be a god(dess?) by the end of the semester.
posted by callmejay at 12:15 PM on January 9, 2004