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What Grinds Our Gears: Computer-lab desk-hoggers

Written by Kitty Cheung, Staff Writer

When you’re walking through the library during peak study season, a free desktop computer can be a rare sight. As someone who doesn’t want to lug her brother’s bulky hand-me-down gaming computer out of the house, I revel in the library computers as a great resource.

What irks me, however, is coming across fellow students sitting in front of computers with the keyboard pushed back, with their laptops filling up their space.

Why do students keep doing this? All there is for you at those desks is less room to work: even when pushed away, the mouse and keyboard take up a third of your desk space. That space is already limited considering your pile of notes, splayed open books, and laptop. Combined with a blank monitor just in front of your face, this cannot possibly be a convenient spot for you to study.

Please, if you have your own computer, go sit at a regular desk. Find a cubicle, an open table, a comfy armchair, or any other sort of ideal study furniture. Don’t take up seats in the library computer labs when you already have the benefit of your own portable computer. You’re hindering students who don’t have their own portable computers from getting their shit done.

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