Observation 1: Inside the Room

On October 7^th, 2015 at 9:00pm I sat inside a dorm room in Alumni Hall on the 3^rd floor in the Nursing FIG. A FIG is a first year interest group that freshman students get put into based upon their interest, they are then separated onto certain floors established on the interest group. The dorm rooms are split into suites, where there are 2 identical room labeled room ‘A’ and room ‘B’. In the middle of these 2 rooms there is a toilet room, a shower room, and a double vanity sink in the middle. Each individual room consists of two beds, two wardrobes, two desks, and four draws for each person. In the suite I observed all four of the beds were raised, underneath the beds were a mixture of storage bins, draws, and cleaning supplies. The wardrobes were lined up next to each other with food lined up on the top of them, on the front there were pictures and mirrors, and lined up inside them were clothes hung on hangers. The desks were full of textbooks, notebooks, pictures of friends and family, computers, TV’s, and calendars. Both of the rooms were well ordered and tidy.

            Inside of room ‘A’ there was seven girls and one boy all cluttered together. In the room all of the people were watching a show called ‘Empire’ on a TV that sat on one of the desks. The people in the room were all wearing what they wore today a combination leggings, jeans, sweatshirts, cardigans, and sweatpants. Everyone in the room was of different ethnicities such as Spanish, White, and African American. There was two girls sitting on one bed, one standing at the end of the bed, one sitting on the floors, one sitting on a chair, two standing up next to the other bed, and the boy was laying down on his bed. Three of the girls were doing homework on a mixture of laptops and in textbooks. The girls that were doing homework were focusing on the homework but also trying to focus on the television. Although they were trying to their homework the TV seemed to be a distraction because they were commenting on the show and laughing at it. They all continued to watch the television and go on their phones while doing homework. With a combination of all of the technology and people in the room, I realize that they were not as focused on their work as one would be sitting in a library. However during the performance they would all talk but when the commercials were on they would pay more attention to their homework and the room would almost be silent. The room was so crowded that temperature rose from a normal 71 degrees to 77 degrees. Still all of the girls were trying to do their homework through all these distraction as the boy was strictly watching TV. As time went on, conversation started up about the famous actors on the television and conversation didn’t break throughout the commercials. A little while after when a boy came in even more conversation started, but he had finished his homework in solidarity in another room. The chats consisted of talk about the show, homework, and classes. They also started assisting each other with their homework and classes. The conversations picked up a lot from the beginning to the end with people talking about random daily topics and helping each other with homework.

            In room ‘B’ there were three boys, all wearing what they wore today, there was little-no discussion and the room was almost in complete silence. Two of the boys were sitting at the desk writing essays and doing homework while the other boy was sitting on a bed doing chemistry homework. The television that was sitting on the desk was off and all of them were strictly focused on their work. All of them didn’t seem to be uncomfortable with sitting in silence doing their homework. After the 2 boys were done they joined the rest of the people in the other room to watch TV, while the other boy stayed in his own room writing his essay with headphones in.

            In room ‘A’ there was a lot more activity than there was in room ‘B’ due to the amount of people in the room and what the activity was in the space. This observation made me wonder if there is a difference between boy and girl study habits. The one room was filled with almost all girls trying to do homework, watch TV, and talk to each other at the same time. The one boy in the room wasn’t even attempting homework in that setting. In the other room the boys were all sitting quietly in not so big of a group setting with significantly less distractions. Girls seem more inclined to work in a group setting with noise around them, mixing work with socialization. While boys seem to be prone to work quietly and separately, not mixing the line between socialization and school. But are the girls or anyone that works with a television on in a group setting truly focused and concentrated on the task at hand? Correspondingly, what are the limits to the distractions one can with hold? Another consideration came upon me when I thought about high school and home life. I wonder if these people working in group settings now also worked in groups settings at home or if people that worked separately at home still do that now that they are away at school. Maybe the people that worked alone at home now work in groups, but another question arises when you think about if they can achieve the same academic standard as they did in high school with a different study setting.