Being from the west coast, I was never really around snow. I had been skiing once, but that was pretty much it. I went sledding, made a snowman, and had a snowball fight all for the first time at the University of Rochester, all on our beautiful campus. Before starting college, 70 degrees Fahrenheit was considered extremely cold for me. Naturally, I found myself going from building to building using the UR tunnel system, an indoor way to get from class to class, lecture to lecture. All of the academic buildings on the Eastman Quad are connected with an underground tunnel system that is completely insulated and warm. When I first heard about tunnels, I thought of some old A Game of Thrones-like dungeon or something, but the tunnels have professors' offices, water fountains, classrooms, vending machines, computer stations, and more. The tunnels provide a great way to avoid that blizzard outside or those pesky puddles.
The science area has its own tunnel system as well, connecting the Goergen Engineering building, Carlson Library, and Hutchinson Hall, which has all the labs. Many science majors and pre-med students spend all day in these buildings, so having its own tunnel system is pretty nifty. These are helpful when you want to quickly run over to the library to check a book out, but don’t want to put on layers of sweatshirts and jackets.
There is also a separate tunnel system at Jackson Court, an area with three residential life buildings for upperclassmen: Wilder, Anderson, and O’Brien, all a true testament of our campus diversity. This is also extremely helpful when you want to visit a friend in another residential life building. Take the elevator to the basement, and just follow the tunnel signs that tell to where to go. Here, the tunnels also house entrances to the laundry rooms, so if you live in one of these buildings, you’ll be using these tunnels often. I live in Wilder right now, and I pretty much use the tunnels at least every other day! There is a very similar tunnel system for the Hillcourt residential buildings, another upperclassman housing area.