To help my fellow students prepare for Dead Week and Finals Week, I will not join your study group. Instead, I will give you a compre­hen­sive review of the Suzza­llo and Allen Library bath­rooms. In my eyes, this will help you choose study spots to your restroom-go­ing pref­er­ences and increase study­ing effi­cien­cy. Other libraries won’t be reviewed because Suzza­llo and Allen are the best loca­tions on campus to study. Bottom line is, the follow­ing updates will be crit­i­cal to read for you to pass your class­es, so they should be reviewed and under­stood just as well, if not better than your exam mate­ri­al. There­fore, I expect recog­ni­tion for any classes in which you exceeded expec­ta­tions. Why can I get away with writ­ing these reviews with­out study­ing, you inquire? Because I’m taking ESRM core class­es, that’s why.

The third floor bath­room in Suzza­llo (remem­ber, Suzza­llo and Allen occupy the same build­ing but are tech­ni­cally two sepa­rate enti­ties [Allen was added on in 1990 after Suzza­llo was built through­out the 20’s and 30’s]) is right across from the Read­ing Room. High school­ers and awestruck fresh­men also know it as the Harry Potter Room, because J.K. Rowl­ing was the first person to think about putting elab­o­rate light fixtures, tables and book­shelves in giant, high­-ceilinged, stone rooms that could belong to a castle. There’s at least a hundred people in there at any given moment and it’s a high­light on the campus tour so it’s always pretty crowd­ed. The open area right outside of it also has study spots and there’s a wing of study rooms and offices to the side of that. Desks are inter­spersed in between book­shelves contain­ing approx­i­mately one billion volumes.

Which is a surprise to say that this bath­room is really under­whelm­ing. To begin with it’s pretty small. But just look­ing at it makes you real­ize all the wasted poten­tial of it. With only one hand­i­cap toilet stall and two urinals, it cannot sustain a high level of traf­fic. The urinals are set at an angle to the toilet and sinks so it’s a very awkward space, augmented by the uncom­fort­ably close prox­im­ity of the stalls to one anoth­er. To top it off, one of them is a kid stall. Remem­ber to aim low.

The worst part about this bath­room is that there are four sinks and four paper towel dispensers to accom­mo­date the stalls. You might be excited at the prospect of very clean hands, but I see inef­fi­cien­cy. Why place four sinks when there are only going to be three at most people peeing or poop­ing at any given time? There’s also an exces­sive amount of paper towel dispensers equal to the amount of sinks. Both these ameni­ties take up a sizable amount of space in the joint, each on oppo­site sides of the room. It’s just too damn dispro­por­tion­ate of a recep­ta­cle:sink ratio for utmost func­tion­al­i­ty. It’s like having a hundred guns with one round of bullets. The exces­sive things also make the bath­room seem even more crowded than it already is and thus upsets the feng shui energy flow. Conver­sion of one or two of the sinks to urinals would be most effi­cient in my mind, but it is what it is.

Along with lack­ing func­tion­al­ity and being a little crowd­ed, it’s the only restroom on the third floor of the Suzza­l­lo/Allen complexes besides the ones on the north and south wings of Allen, both of which are a pretty long walk away if it’s urgent. It usually smells pretty bad due to overuse too. That and the water foun­tains right by it have low water pres­sure (there is a better one is the old metal one by the side stair­case). Basi­cal­ly, every­thing about this bath­room is rather unsat­is­fac­to­ry, but if you’re hitting the books in the Read­ing Room, you really don’t have much of a choice. A meager one a three­-quar­ters out of five and zero quar­ters rating shall be decreed.

The women’s restrooms are simi­larly under­whelm­ing. Only two stalls, one hand­i­cap and one stan­dard sized. The lack of toilets and high traf­fic mean you will almost always find your­self wait­ing in line in this awkwardly shaped and foul smelling bath­room. You will not find the same exces­sive hand-wash­ing facil­i­ties, only two sinks and two paper towel dispensers. On a scale of 1 to 5, this bath­room receives a meh/a­p­a­thetic shoul­der shrug. If you happen to be study­ing with some­one who is will­ing to watch your things (never leave items in the library unat­tend­ed, IT ONLY TAKES A SECOND), I highly recom­mend ventur­ing to the main floor. The bath­room at the bottom of the stairs has a much better atmosphere with sturdy wood stall doors, about 5 or 6 stalls, a slew of sinks and paper towel dispensers, and a more spacious layout. Howev­er, as this is the bath­room clos­est to the entrance and Suzza­llo Cafe, it also receives the most traf­fic, again lead­ing to some­times painfully long queues as your blad­der throbs while you wait for entire high school classes on field trips to use the bath­room. The best bath­room in Suzza­llo hands down is the other restroom on the main floor. Pass up the crowded bath­room by the stairs about 40 feet and you will find Suzza­llo’s most under­rated facil­i­ties. The largest restroom, with about 5 stalls, 4 sinks, and plenty of wasted hall space, this is your best bet for some priva­cy. If you have to poop and you’re in Suzza­llo, there’s no ques­tion that this is the place to be. So as you over-con­sume coffee to fuel your fran­tic study sesh, and really get those bowels moving, remem­ber not to bother with other Suzza­llo bath­rooms.

Best of luck to all of you as you study, write papers, and pee and poop in library bath­rooms! I’m a senior and I’m duuuunnnzzooo bitches!