Ok... so I realize that there are many people on this forum who aren't on campus yet, or are still considering applying, etc... you can all disregard this post, or feel free to read it if you want to hear about an all too common annoyance here on campus. I would send it to our class rep to distribute... but the truth is, well, no one really reads those messages anyway. Let me start by saying that this is, overall, a great place to be for school... but like any campus, there are some problems.

The specific problem I am referencing is the "room reservation system" that has been implemented so that we can reserve PBL rooms (small study rooms with whiteboards) in the evening for personal or group use. This is a great and very necessary idea for such a large campus. Unfortunately however, it cannot be great if nobody uses it. For the past week, the room that I have reserved has been occupied when I get there. In the spirit of avoiding an awkward situation, I let it go and go study in the library or back at home, in hopes that it was an isolated incident and it won't happen again. Tonight, I am officially annoyed. As I wait for the person in my room to pack up their stuff and leave, I watched 3 different groups of people searching around for empty rooms to take. Is it that hard to go online and type your name into the little box? Come on guys, seriously... let's use some sense. There are way too many people here for the usage of these rooms to be a crapshoot, and it is in everyone's best interest to sign up for the rooms and not just take it when you see on one in it. Now, I understand that on occasion people who reserve the rooms don't show up, in which case go for it if they aren't there within 15 minutes or so... but when and if they do show up, don't get all pouty because you have to move. It takes 2 minutes to open your laptop and reserve as a space. So do it.

Besides that, things are great here, you’ll love it.

Oh, and heres the address to the reservation system for those of you who don't have it


dm-web01.rusm.rossu.loc/mrm7

Why it doesn't have it's own sub-domain (eg; stopbeinglazyandreservetherooms.rossmed.edu.dm), I don't know. But until Ross figures out how to use to those, just put it in your bookmarks. As indicated by the .loc, you must be on campus to access this site. And I know, I know, that is really tough. But I'm sure you can find time when you come on campus to mediasite to pull up the page... and for those of you who are in pace or use someone else's pace password to mediasite from home... it will be a great opportunity for you to see what the campus looks like during the day... you might like it.

xo
- the voice of reason

just out of curiosity, are ppl still squatting like they were when i was on the island or has that cleared up?

__________________
RUSM '10

semesters 1-5 [X]
USMLE Step 1 [X]

Yeah they pretty much still are, just in different ways. Since they've implemented the whole library closing from 6am-8am thing, supposedly if you leave your stuff out overnight it gets collected and put into a room. I'm not sure if that is true or not as that would require effort on the part of the night shift library staff, which I find to be pretty unlikely. So people have just moved their squatting endeavors elsewhere.

Since there is no enforcement of the PBL room reservation system people take that as an opportunity to do their own thing. Most commonly giving the excuse "I didn't know" or "well we're all setup, and there’s a bunch of us, so can you guys just study somewhere else?" Wrong answer.

this is not only problem at Ross, this is problem at any university. Happend when I went to school all the time. And we did have a similar online reservation system that no one used.

The worst is the swing building. People take 2+ desks and build little 'cubicles' for lack of a better word. They put their stuff all over them and it never moves.

Stop being a passive aggressive wuss. March in there, tell them you reserved the room and tell them to get out. They will, and if they don't, get security or something. That's how it works- you won't get a room if you're not aggressive about it. Actually, that's how Ross works.