Point

Quiet hours: An essential part of dorm hall life or an unnecessary precaution? I think that quiet hours are pointless when it comes to life in the dorms. Most students do not pay attention to the hours enlisted. They continue to make noise regardless of the time of day.

Since everyone is on a different schedule when it comes to class time and sleeping patterns, quiet hours suppress the interaction of night owls. On school nights, quiet hours are supposed to start at 8 p.m.

This may be considered too early because rarely any college students are sleeping this early. It also affects the time students can spend together. Since they are busy throughout the day, nighttime is the time when they can relax and hang out with friends. Quiet hours inhibit the bonding experiences between people living in the same dorm hall.

If students are searching for a quiet place to finish their schoolwork, they can utilize the library. Instead of creating hours to be quiet, they have access to a well-equipped library that requires silence. This gives students an alternative from doing schoolwork in their dorm room.

Dorm rooms are often seen as a sanctuary away from the stresses and rigidity of school. They are a place for Netflix and hanging with friends, not studying for midterms and writing massive research papers. For the most part, I don’t know that many students who are productive in their rooms. Students’ disregard for the listed quiet hours cause these hours to lose their purpose.

Since this rule is violated constantly, there is no point because it just infringes on students’ social lives. Also, little enforcement of quiet hours causes them to lose meaning and not accomplish their goal for silence.

Instead of listing quiet hours, I think students should just deal with situations daily. For example, if they are trying to sleep and their floormate is blasting music, they can politely ask them to turn the music down. Situations like these are more efficient than quiet hours and force students to hold each other accountable for their noise levels.

Counterpoint

Quiet hours just may be a gift sent from God. When you are worrying about doing your homework or studying for a test at the last minute, the last thing you need added to the mix are those regularly loud residents down the hall to affect your productivity.

Without quiet hours and with a lack of common decency, those residents will not feel any inclination to quiet down and if left to do what they wanted, they would probably go on non-stop like the Energizer Bunny. What restricts these party-going social animals is the simple fact that if they are too loud, they will most likely be seen or heard by a resident assistant and be documented.

What a resident planning to defy the rules may think is, “The RA will never catch me, and this building is too big. The chances are slim. Let’s party hard, right?” Wrong. All a quieter and annoyed resident needs to do is confront the situation head on: “Come on man/woman, you do not want to get documented, you should probably lower that.” Or, if a resident is not confident to do that him or self, he or she can tell the RA on duty and have the RA handle the situation.

The quiet hours are a great thing because every single resident knows the hours at which they start and end. When asking someone to quiet down, they could just easily say no; but, it is the quiet hours’ rule that ensures every resident knows the times when it is appropriate to make noise and be silent.

When a RA hears someone violating quiet hours, it is fair to assume that the resident in question is consciously disregarding the rule, which makes it easier for the RA to document the resident, ensuring there will not be a repeated offense.

Let’s be honest: When you want to study in peace, the last thing you should have to worry about is a resident yelling and behaving out of control. Respect and appreciate the quiet hours because they are there to keep everyone in Zen mode when Zen mode should be kept.

 

 

About The Author

-- Editor-in-Chief Emeritus-- English: Journalism/Creative Writing

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