Ranking the classrooms on their extremely unique features
This highly scientific ranking of the Faculty of Law classrooms is based on a number of factors: general vibes, temperature, seating arrangement, windows, and crowd control. Additionally, many of the law school classrooms are twins, so they will be judged together.
Vibes: self explanatory.
Temperature: Is it cold? Is it hot? If not, good!
Seating arrangement: Can you get into and out of class without distracting the whole room or walking in front of the professor just because you wanted to refill your water bottle? How much do you have to squeeze to get into a middle seat in your row and are you confined forevermore in the middle because you can’t squeeze past the people on either side of you in the middle of class?
Presence of windows: Windows have three purposes. To give natural light and scenery, to make sure you don’t fall asleep after that all-nighter, and to tell you if it’s raining. If they can perform those purposes without adding problems like laptop screen glare, that’s good!
Finally, crowd control. For some of these classrooms, I timed how fast it took for a 70-80 person class to mostly vacate a room.
- FL219
FL219 is a very nice classroom that, more than many classrooms, has a “lived-in” feel. The wood paneling grounds the classroom and the paneling, combined with the modern light fixtures, gives a pleasant mix of old and new. From my observations, the classroom did not have any temperature abnormalities. The seating arrangement is typical for a classroom designed for small groups and, due to the larger space of the classroom, it has very easy maneuverability. Additionally, it has windows but they do not provide a distraction. In short, FL219 feels like a corporate boardroom with a heart that has no major flaws with its design.
- J225 and J230
J225 and J230’s main point of interest is the windows. The windows give a green, leafy view that provides enough natural light, but does not contribute to computer glare. The rest of the classroom is normal in its layout and features, has a good amount of maneuverability, and a decent temperature. The only major problems is that the rooms tend to have a rather loud air conditioning system towards the back of the room and the front of the room has noise from the Atrium.
- P120
P120 is the start of the ‘meh’ tier of law school classrooms. It’s nondescript, with the exception of its columns which are unique in law school classrooms. P120’s nice points are that the entrance is in the back of the classroom, thus minimizing distraction, and it also seems to have slightly more space between rows than other classrooms on this list, which minimizes the squeeze dance to get to your chair. Ambient temperature, no windows.
- P105 and P115
P105 and P115 are similarly in the ‘meh’ tier, with no real benefits, but also no real problems. The entrance is in the back of the classroom, minimizing distractions, and an ambient temperature. .But there’s also no windows and the rows are rather narrow, maximizing the amount of squeezing to get to your seat.
- J250
J250 is perhaps the most important classroom in the law school and is often the lifeblood for events. The main drawback for J250 is the temperature. It’s a walk-in freezer of a classroom. Unlike P120, P105, and P115, the entrance to J250 is in the front, which maximizes the number of people who know that you need to fill up your water bottle in the middle of class. The rows are narrow, the windows useless, providing neither a legitimate source of light or visual interest, nor accurate weather data due to the white lines on the windows which obscure the presence of rain and other elements. J250 is also just annoyingly too small. Especially in 1L, it is used for events with the whole law school class, such as orientation information sessions. However, the occupancy of the room is about 10 people smaller than the size of a law school class, which makes the room slightly too crowded. Everyone is subject to a lot of squeezing to get into the last available seats, which will inevitably be in the middle.
- J125 and J130
J125 and J130 are fine. Their main problem is the front entry to the room, instead of the less distracting back entries of P105 and P115.
- FL223
The main problem with FL223 is the mismatch between potential and results. The room has many nice features: the moulding on the ceiling, the windows to the atrium, the paintings on the walls. But it is painted a depressing gray and the tone of the light in the chandeliers is too cold for the space, especially combined with the grey walls. This leads to an overall feeling of darkness and a dispiriting vibe. On the other factors it is okay: normal seating arrangement, ambient temperature. But this classroom is a clear case study in how to kill a room with potential.
- J140
J140 is a cave. The definition of a cave is an underground chamber, and I would argue that J140 is roughly that. It is recessed under J250, giving the feeling of being underground and the window feels high up and small, making you feel like you’re in the mouth of a cave. During class, you look deep within the cave into the very soul of the professor at the very recesses of the cave, the sun at your back, unhelpful glare on your laptop screen. J140 also has problems with narrow roles and crowd control. With a similar number of students, it takes over 10 seconds longer to clear J140 than to clear J250, even though J250 is a bigger classroom. Clearly, leaving the cave is no easy feat. So, for the non-spelunkers among us, J140 is the worst classroom at the law school.