Being a senior English major, I have spent my fair share of time in UNI’s computer labs, hashing out last-minute papers, printing off short stories for my fiction workshops, or researching for upcoming papers, so with a large number of clocked hours in these computer labs, I have a list of unofficial rules I wish were in place. I will admit that some of these fall into my own personal list of pet peeves, but most of them should be common sense (although if I’m having to bring them up, maybe they aren’t). I also have to preface that most of these rules apply to smaller computer labs where there isn’t a lot of room and any noise is, well, noticeable. Very noticeable. And usually annoying. Anyway, here we go.  

1. Do not use small computer labs for large group work. I love it when four or five people cluster around one computer, using the chairs, but not using the computers. Great. I’ll just kneel here awkwardly without a chair. I also love it when you argue loudly about what you’re doing, how your assignment is unfair, or how much you dislike a professor’s teaching style. Favorite bonus is when three of you print off the same thing. The same thing that happens to be 30 pages long. And then you throw away the extra copies. Not recycling them, but putting them in the trash. Fabulous.

2. Don’t talk absurdly loud with your friends. I know, I get it, I love hanging out with my friends too, but when I have to blast music through my headphones to concentrate on writing my paper, you are probably talking too loud. Technically speaking, since these computer labs exist on UNI’s campus, anyone trying to get work done has precedence, and although you probably don’t know I’m writing an eight page paper on feminist criticism, it’s always good to assume people are trying to get school work done, unlike you, who are talking about last night’s epic bar crawl.

3. Use. Headphones.

4. But also don’t blare your music. Then I have to blare my music, which means someone has to blare their music to cover up my music, and then we’re all going deaf.

5. Please, please, please do not print off obnoxious amounts of pages when there’s a lot of people in the lab. It’s probably for an important class, and you do probably have to print them off, but you see this line behind you? Yeah, we’d also like to get to class, only we didn’t try to print off half a book. Also, don’t glare at me when I have to interrupt your book-printing process by printing off two pages. 

6. Don’t sit in a spot if you are using your own laptop and not the desktop computer. Between class breaks it gets really crowded and desperate students need to print off things before running to class. You taking up that spot most likely means they have to run to a different lab.
And lastly:

7. Be aware of your space. Don’t leave your chair blocking other people. Don’t leave your backpack and coat in the middle of the aisle. I swear I’m not that big of a klutz, but your huge bag tripped me up while I was trying to get my two pages of paper from the printer, after waiting in line behind two people printing off 35-page PDF files when the printer runs a page, pauses, whirrs a bit, starts up again, prints a page, pauses, whirrs a bit, starts up again, etc.