As the number of weeks we have spent in Spring Quarter gradually increases, so do the numbers on the thermostats in our apartments. Not only does this weather lift student spirits, produce allergic reactions and foster opportunities for sunburns, but it allows us to appreciate and welcome the air conditioning of the classrooms we so dread to be in for multiple hours at a time.
However, students are finding themselves uncomfortable sitting in these air-conditioned rooms, or what are now being referred to as ice chests. For some reason, the insides of campus lecture halls have turned into meat lockers. Maybe we didn’t notice it when we donned our fleece hoodies, wool mittens and rain pants a mere couple of months ago, but now the indoor temperatures are becoming unbearable.
Not only is this overuse of air conditioning environmentally harming and a waste of energy, but it also causes disturbances in class. Occurrences of students leaving lecture early to seek solace in any sort of heat source have left professors perturbed. Some have even offered to bring blankets to class to maintain the turnout of students.
You would think UC Davis, being the biking capital of the nation and all, would realize that students don’t have enough room for in their satchels/man-purses or beaten-up JanSports for Snuggies, heating blankets and winter jackets.
Doesn’t this campus have an atmospheric science department? Aren’t we one of the top research universities in the nation, winning award after award? How about winning the hearts of the shivering students by developing some sort of smart thermostat that realizes when people are in pain from the arctic winter winds produced by the air conditioning?
Perhaps if this problem was fixed, those of us who prefer to show off our tanned guns in bro tanks and sculpted biking legs in mini skirts would happily attend and be able to pay attention in class.
I think for people who came in, sweating buckets from biking in the heat, the cool can be an initial relief. I propose 15 degrees below outside temperatures for the first five minutes of class and then dropping to about five degrees below.