The social side of studying: our campus study spaces should encourage both academics and socializing
As cubicle culture replaces communal tables, what happens to the community that came with studying in the UTM Library basement?
Most afternoons during the fall semester of 2023, I found myself heading down to the library’s basement floor. It was never loud enough to break the unwritten rule of library quietness, yet never truly quiet either. A chorus of whispered conversations floated between the long communal tables, punctuated by the scrape of chairs and the familiar question “is anyone sitting here?” asked repeatedly throughout the day.
Sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, highlighting rows of wooden tables crowded with iced coffees, tangled chargers, highlighted notes, and backpacks that possessed an unspoken right to reserve seats. Students wandered the space, subtly searching for an empty chair while quietly calculating who looked closest to packing up. The sound of a zipper was enough to alert the entire room of a potential available seat. Every table had its own ecosystem. A group in the far corner would be cramming for a chemistry midterm, while another nearby had somehow spent forty minutes discussing everything except the assignment open on their screens.
For many students, the library basement was a default destination. My friends and I would debate where to spend our time between lectures, aiming to head upstairs. Yet, chatter from the lower floor drew us downstairs, armed with our coffees and laptops and settling into the same tables we spent complaining about just that morning.
With this, the UTM Library’s basement quickly earned the reputation for campus’s prime “performative studying” spot. All of us witnessed it and most of us probably took part in it. The ritual of opening laptops, swirling our overpriced iced coffees, and declaring we would be productive. And the stereotype exists for a reason. Many afternoons slipped away with untouched assignments while conversations ranged from midterm stress to weekend plans. If uninterrupted productivity was the goal, there were silent study spaces just a staircase away.
However, incoming UTM students this fall will not get to take part in this experience because the University recently decided to replace the communal tables with individual cubicles. The problem might not be that the basement failed to provide adequate study spots, but that we were measuring the success of the space by the wrong standards. We tend to imagine that studying happens in complete silence and alone. Our Library’s basement challenged this idea, allowing concentration and conversation to exist in the same space; a space reserved not only for hardcore studying but also for the small rituals that build social bonds through our communal outpourings of frustration and stress as midterms week made its brisk approach. The basement wasn’t popular because students wanted to look productive; it was a favoured study spot because it didn’t require us to be isolated from everyone else.
Research on university learning commons reflects this. Students often choose communal library spaces even for independent work because the lively atmosphere fosters a sense of connection and belonging. The presence of our peers did not always mean collaboration, it made studying seem less solitary. There was comfort in being surrounded by people navigating the same midterms, deadlines, endless to-do lists, and just the overall experience of being a student.
The Library basement’s distinctive quality was its ability to blur the line between academics and socializing, and therefore challenge the notion that the two are somehow inherently incompatible. With the mix of wheeled chairs, communal tables, and firm sofas, it was neither a typical library nor a student lounge, yet somehow managed to be both. The openness of the space invited small interactions that rarely happened elsewhere. A question about an assignment could become an impromptu tutoring session or you could overhear another group worrying about the same midterm and realize you weren’t the only one struggling through the semester.
Productivity at the communal tables was rarely a linear experience. From the outside, moments of distractions dominated. But, I would argue they were an essential part of the education students received. These experiences are what made students more likely to show up to campus day after day.
The mix of expected structure with unexpected pockets of spontaneity—and the shared experiences that followed—are especially meaningful at UTM, a predominantly commuter campus where fostering friendships can often feel transient. Many students arrive for class and leave when their last lecture ends, making opportunities for spontaneous community rare. The Library basement gave people a reason to stay; a reason to linger and chat a little longer. The hours spent there between classes was more than passing time as acquaintances became familiar faces, and familiar faces became friendships. You didn’t have to coordinate plans or ask the group chat who was free after class. Instead, you could simply grab a seat, and campus life happened around you.
Now, the basement floor is a replica of the silent study spaces upstairs. Long communal tables have been replaced by neat rows of individual cubicles with high dividers separating one student from the next. Students slip into their own study spot, put on their headphones, and disappear behind their laptop screens.
The renovation does have its pros. The cubicles are designed for focused work, providing more privacy and fewer chances of the person sitting next to you becoming an unexpected participant in your afternoon. It reflects a reasonable demand for silent study spaces, particularly during the busiest weeks of the semester.
But, physical spaces do more than accommodate our habits; they also shape them. When a library gives each student an individual space, it encourages an individual experience. When it puts dozens of students around the same table, it creates opportunities for interaction, even if no one came with the intention to socialize.
I think much of the pushback on the changes to the basement’s layout stem from the fact that UTM already has many silent study spots. The library’s upper levels offered what the new basement now provides. Rather than having designated, entirely separate spaces for studying or socializing, many students like myself appreciated a location that allows for both. The basement offered a particular type of community where everyone arrived with the same purpose and had the chance to pursue it differently.
It was inefficient, occasionally annoying, but entirely ours. I think that’s what gets lost when we judge university spaces simply by how well it supports an oftentimes narrow and outdated idea of productivity. While university should be considered a place for students to learn, it is also where we build friendships and develop a sense of belonging. The old basement was academically impractical because it left room for everything else important to the student experience. By turning our Library basement into another quiet and atomized study floor, UTM didn’t exactly eliminate the need for community spaces; it eliminated a valued way that community used to happen.
