Perhaps nothing can truly ease the pain of cramming for finals or racing to crank out a term paper, but at least students can suffer in style–pretty much around the clock–in two study spaces that opened in September.
The first phase of renovations to the Rosengarten Reserve Room in Van Pelt-Dietrich Library has transformed a space that, as President Rodin remarked at the ribbon-cutting, was one of the few places at Penn that hadn’t changed at all since her undergraduate days in the 1960s. The Undergraduate Study Center (above), which will be open all night, has attractive lighting and carpeting and is furnished with solid-cherry tables and chairs; it’s also fully wired for laptop computers and equipped with PC and IMac work-stations. In addition to glass-enclosed suites for group study and distraction-free reading, it has open reading and lounge areas and an assistive-technologies study room for students with disabilities.
The new Silfen Study Center, adjacent to Williams Hall, is the latest phase of the Perelman Quadrangle project to be completed. Designed for late-night study, the facility includes meeting rooms and an open reading area–and a café serving coffee and other beverages, sandwiches and light fare. (A proposed Library Café will have to wait for a later stage of the Rosengarten renovation, which is scheduled to resume next summer.)
