Campus Carrier Editorial Board
Going to the Dining Hall at 12 P.M. is only a good idea if you want at least twenty people to run into you. It’s also a good idea if you don’t want to find a table to sit and eat at. There are high chances that you can feel claustrophobic at some point anywhere on campus. It’s great that there are so many people attending this college, but is there enough room for everyone?
With football at Berry now, the number of students has exponentially grown. There are so many students that any building’s size seems limited. Walk into Dana and you will see people having to reside in former study rooms. Those people do not even have closets. It all seems ridiculous. There have been so many empty promises about new residence halls. If it seems like a fair prediction that Berry will ever exceed 2,100 students, they need to build new residence halls, and fast. It seems that Berry’s current structure cannot hold all of these students.
Berry thought they could fix this issue of overcrowding by making all of the residence halls, besides Ford, co-ed. That may give more options on where to live for the young men, but this did not completely fix the problem. Unfortunately, lack of residence rooms is not the only issue here.
Do not ever count on being able to park close to your residence hall. Count on having to walk half a mile. The exercise is great. Do not mistake that. It’s just that with more students than Berry has ever had, more parking spaces seem necessary, don’t you think? Does Berry have a better idea to make this work somehow? Let’s hope so.
This problem is frustrating for most of the students here. We are all looking forward to the new changes Berry will make to expand the campus. But when are the going to make those changes? Hopefully soon.
2,100 students was Berry’s goal. So it just seems odd that they have delayed providing more space for students over the years. We might have the largest campus in the world, but we still have a problem everywhere with finding places to put the students. Berry is a great place to be, but it’s hard to think about that as you’re trying to squeeze your way through Krannert or the Dining Hall, running into everyone.
This is not a problem that only Berry has. Most colleges and universities struggle with finding where to put students because student rates keep going up every year, leading that school to feel overcrowded. Berry is a great place to be. Let’s hope that they can make it even better by expanding residence halls, parking lots and the academic halls.