There are too many people in the ASS

Is it just me or do you find that every time you go to the ASS it’s absolutely packed?!

I remember the days of first year when I used to walk into the ASS at 2pm on a Monday and it would be a ghost town.

I would have my pick of seats and spread my books out over the whole of a table without getting mean looks from anyone.

I would even leave my stuff in the library while I went to the gym or the shops without having to worry about the intense, nagging guilt that I was depriving someone of a much needed desk.

Well, my friends, those days are over. This is the scene you’re now greeted with when you walk through the door…

There are literally people EVERYWHERE.

Even when I arrive at what I believe to be the pretty early time of 10 in the morning, I have to hunt for a desk. The chance of being lucky enough to get a seat anywhere near the books I need to use is slim to none.

So, what’s change? Have we all become more diligent students in the last couple of years, each spending hours of every day in the library?

I think not.

Instead, the ASS is the best place on campus to visibly see the effects of increased student intake year on year.

Go there for five minutes and you can feel the literal squeeze of thousands of students being crammed into facilities that simply weren’t built to be used by so many people.

Even the recent attempt to expand the working areas on the ground floor hasn’t done enough.

Friday. 10am. November. No spare desks.

The library should be a place students can go to at any time of day to drop in, do some work and look at a few books. Not somewhere that’s only reserved for the wily few who live near enough to the ASS that they can get there at 9 am.

Sure, the rest of us can feel good about probably having a healthier social life, but that’s hardly any consolation when the clock strikes 10 in the morning and there’s not a single spare desk.

I asked the librarians if they had noticed the glaringly obvious rise in numbers of people. Of course they had.

They offered alternative reasons for why it was busier, suggesting more people were going to the library for the heating, the good food at the café or to avoid the rain.

But it’s unlikely anyone is waking up in the morning and thinking they’ll go to the library so they can stay warm, dry, and well-fed. Instead, they were avoiding the grim reality that there are simply too many people studying at the uni now for the ASS to be able to comfortably accommodate them.

Something needs to be done.