Beta Lounge Review
Warning: The review you’re about to read is not going to be overly built up or put down for any ulterior motives like meeting a word criteria for a paper. I am only here to give my most genuine description and opinion of what is known to be the Beta Lounge.
Is the Beta Lounge somewhere that everyone should go to or visit? Absolutely not. Its purpose is not to be a desired place that you want to go to have a really good time. It is meant to be a place that people can gather for an assortment of reasons such as studying or watching television. So really, you could have a fun time at the Beta Lounge with the right people but typically that’s not what its role is.
The most common use for it is organized events and stack meetings planned by R.A.’s which not many people attend. On the school’s website they describe it as this, “Beta Stack 8 has two lounges, one with a kitchenette, and one with a big screen TV and piano” In spite of this being a basic description of the lounge, the tone throughout the rest of the website tells me that its is expected to be a place for people to come together. Take this quote as an example, “Beta-Gamma residents are encouraged to become active members of their residence hall, Beta-Gamma community, as well as the larger campus community. The staff works to provide opportunities for service learning, leadership development, and continued learning opportunities on issues of interest” Reading this tells me that the university expects this to be a place for people in the dorms to come together and have a good time time but that is not what it is used for.
Once you actually go in the lounge you will see a nice big screen TV as seen in the picture here. It is convenient to be able to watch a sports game on the TV in the lounge but I would never go there to just watch TV, I would have to already have something specific in mind. So other than that there is not much that draws people to the Beta Lounge. There’s a foosball table with no ball. Is it lost? Do you need to go somewhere to get it? That’s evidently for you to decide, but regardless of which one it is you’re not playing foosball. Neighboring that is a piano which is nice because not a lot of people are usually going through the lounge so it wouldn’t be embarrassing to practice. But on the other hand, if someone is willing to go somewhere to play piano they’re probably a music major that has access to a nicer piano in the P.A.C.
Next in the Beta Lounge is the bathroom. It probably seems too insignificant to mention but when the front desk has closed and everyone in your suite forgot to grab toilet paper this bathroom becomes very significant. But all joking aside the bathroom is very well kept, probably because of how little it’s used. Nonetheless it was very clean and orderly. I don’t know about you, but that’s how I prefer my bathroom.
And last but not least if you move upstairs to the only other floor of the Beta Lounge, you will find even less foot traffic, but you will find an oven with a stovetop (it’s usually as empty as the picture shows). I’m convinced that I am one of the few living souls that knows this exists, but nevertheless there is one. I have yet to use it but I find comfort knowing that it is there if I ever want to utilize it. I asked my suitemate Philip, who obviously lives in Beta as well, if he ever uses the Beta Lounge and he said, “I have actually only been there for required stack meetings. I’ve never even been upstairs, I didn’t know we had a stove haha” This further proves the point that the lounge is not used for what the school had planned it to be. It is supposed to be such an essential part of dorm living in the school’s mind but I think I speak for all college students when I say we really don’t need it.
But this doesn’t have to construe a negative perception of the lounge because not everything has to be used for its original intention for it to be used right. To quote Lynn Staeheli, “This metaphor implies a recognition that the elements of context described previously are not just a surface on which politics are played. Rather, a place is the result of the layering of activities that constantly make and remake it” (Staeheli, 162). The point she is trying to make in this quote is that, in context, a place is what you make of it because it’s defined by the events that transpire within it.
That being said, this lounge doesn’t seem to have a lot of use, but I still enjoy studying here. I’m enamored by the sheer silence of the upstairs, especially because I’m used to my roommate playing loud music or practicing guitar. If my work isn’t too hard I like to play my own music while I study because nine out of ten times I won’t see another living soul come near the upstairs. It’s a satisfying feeling knowing that I am taking advantage of what so little people use, even supposing that the lounge was probably built with different intentions.
Although I enjoy having the Beta Lounge it is definitely not a necessity. I could live without out having because I mainly just use it for studying which I could do in the library if needed. I’m sure if you asked any other student if they would be upset if they got rid of the lounge they wouldn’t care. Nothing about it needs to be used for anything other than just… lounging around.
Citations:
“Ridgeway Beta.” Tour. Western Washington University, 2016. Web. 24 Jan. 2016.
Agnew, John A., Katharyne Mitchell, Gerard Toal, and Lynn Staeheli. “Place.” A Companion to Political Geography. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003. 158–63. Print.
