By RYAN HABEL
STAFF WRITER
Rutgers University students say overcrowding at the school is beginning to overwhelm them.
The limited living spaces, congested buses and crowded dining halls all play a role in the students’ unhappiness at Rutgers, they say.
Because of the increasing enrollment class sizes, some students are forced to live in dorm lounges and even in the Somerset Crowne Plaza Hotel - that is, until housing finds available rooms to accommodate them.
Doug Frew, a transfer student, had to live in the hotel for three weeks before he decided to move off-campus.
“The hotel shuttle bus came every 45 minutes, if you got out of class a minute late you were stranded at the campus until the next one came,” he said.
Shane Karp, another Rutgers student recalls his time at the hotel as “‘quick, but painful.’”
“We didn’t have a refrigerator or microwave in the room. And if I wanted to eat I had to take a shuttle bus to a dining hall to use my meal swipes,” he said.
Students had to pay out of their own pocket if they wanted to dine at the hotel. Many students have classes scattered throughout the five campuses at Rutgers.
Buses are available to transport the students but they, too, often become crowded and uncomfortable.
“Its impossible to catch a bus back to College Avenue at night,” Rutgers student Ryan McMahon said, “People start pushing and shoving to get on a bus that can’t even fit anymore students. It gets annoying.”
When Rutgers buses are limited and come around every 10 to 15 minutes, sometimes the wait is even longer. Most timesm when the buses arrive, there isn’t even standing room available, students say.
“The LX bus to the Livingston campus is terrible. I have to get to the bus stop close to an hour early just to make it to class on time,” said McMahon who has most of his classes at Livingston.
Students also find it annoying how the dining halls here campus get packed within minutes. Scores of students and staff use these facilities during the same time for meals, making them extremely busy, students say.
Christopher Orzechowski, a wrestler at Rutgers, eats at Brower Commons Dining Hall two or three times a day.
“The team usually eats at Brower after practice, since the gym is right across the street. It’s hard finding an empty seat for myself let alone a table for the whole team,” he said.
Brower Commons has ramps that allow you people to walk down to the ground floor, and most days the lines for food extend up those ramps.
On ‘special dinner nights’ such as King Neptune Night, the dining facilities are filled to capacity. “Its impossible to get a seat at any dining hall on King Neptune Night - the lines sometimes even reach all the way outside to the street,” he said.
The University has to start taking into account the idea of expanding the campus, students say. If the amount of incoming students increases each year as it has been, the problem will just grow continuously, students say.
“Rutgers University should have spent millions of dollars on more housing and dining halls for incoming students, not on renovating the football stadium and Rutgers Athletic Center (RAC),” Frew said.
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