Love it or Hate it: Sever Hall

Love It: It’s Pretty and I’m Shallow — Raymond Wu

Picture this: You’re walking to Sever having just gotten up 30 minutes ago, still groggy and cursing life. But then the sight of the trees framing the concrete path ahead of you makes your sad dreary life just a little less sad and dreary. You get a beautiful view of Memorial Church, of Widener Library, and of Sever Hall itself, that large formidable classroom building chock full of history. I have math in Sever Hall this semester, so maybe not the most invigorating class, but after a year of virtual learning, it’s so nice to be back in a classroom with actual blackboards. It’s comforting. And as a first-year, it’s the moments when I’m in Sever that it really, truly feels like I’m in college. Plus, if I’m ever feeling a ‘lil sleepy during math, I have the church bells to wake me up every hour. Sever also has conference rooms with large, rounded tables that I admittedly have not been in very often, but when I have, I feel like I’m about to eat a very fancy dinner. It’s a nice feeling.

And that’s why I love Sever: the impeccable vibes.

Hate It: Looks Can Be Deceiving — Annette Kim

If there is any class building on campus that needs renovating, it is Sever Hall. Despite being called an architectural masterpiece from the outside, Sever is just an inconvenient experience from the inside. As someone who has two of my four classes in Sever, my main complaint is its horrendous bathroom situation. Whoever thought that two bathrooms were sufficient for a building of four floors was seriously mistaken. Imagine you are in the middle of class on the second floor when you’re hit with the sudden urge to relieve yourself. You run down the stairs to the basement where a long line of jumpy students separate you and the two—stalled monstrosity that Sever offers as the bathroom. You’re disappointed and in pain as you are forced to trudge all five flights of stairs to the fourth floor bathroom just to see that there is yet another line at the only other teeny tiny bathroom. There is no reason why a building that is meant to imprison hold 200 students at a time should only have two bathrooms. Bathroom issues aside, the classrooms are extremely stuffy since half the windows don’t open, the chairs are the most uncomfortable pieces of plastic and metal to exist, AND why is the elevator so hard to find? Sever’s only saving grace is that it’s near Memorial Church from which you can hear the beautiful chimes of the bells assuring you that class is almost over and you can leave the building soon.