Fluctuating weather tries to stop students

Fluctuating weather tries to stop students

By Jacob Green

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., Nov. 9- It’s 7:30 a.m. when the alarm clock goes off in Jordan Paul’s room.

As the alarm rings around the room, with the shades pulled down and the lights turned low, Paul barely manages to hit snooze on his clock from underneath the three blankets he is under.

Paul, a 20-year-old junior economics major, speeds through his morning rituals of getting out of bed, taking a 5-minute shower to wake himself up and slipping on his sweats and hoodie, as he assumes it will be cold as hell out there, considering it is mid-November and Thanksgiving is just a couple of weeks away.

Paul opens the door and to his surprise, it is 70 degrees and sunny out, not the 40 degrees and gloomy skies that he was expecting. But that just how things how gone so far this fall at Rutgers University.

“The weather at this time of the year is usually when this campus starts turning into in ice box, so I’ve got no clue what’s going on right now,” Paul said.

Paul is one of many students who is underestimating the fluctuating weather at Rutgers this year, as everyday seems to bring something else.

Paul described how he would go from wearing shorts and a t-shirt one day, to jeans and a hoodie or even jacket the next day. Paul says he can’t trust just eyeballing what the weather looks like outside.

“Sometimes its sunny but frigid, while the next day its cloudy but humid as can be. Looks can be deceiving,” Paul said.

Students have begun needing to check the weather each morning before they step outside, so they aren’t blindsided by either hot or cold air.

Bill Lampe, a 21-year-old junior business major, has classes on the Livingston campus, although he lives off-campus on College Ave. Lampe is sometimes unsure if he should even leave his bed on the cold days.

“I can’t deal with these cold weather days,” Lampe said. “I have class on Livi, but don’t have a pass for my car to park there. Having to walk all the way to the bus stop is sometimes just not in the cars when its freezing out.”

Lampe said he is usually able to catch a ride with one of his housemates, so he doesn’t miss class too often, but not all students have such luck.

The flip-flopping weather on university campuses is new territory for the first-year students at Rutgers, who for the first time really have the option of whether or not they want to go to class.

18- year-old freshman Arielle Katz, who is currently undecided on her major, has taken the new-found freedom to her liking, as she is able to go to class when she picks and chooses.

“I obviously try to be a good student and go to class every day its scheduled, but there are just those days when it’s disgusting outside and I’d rather be under the blankets in bed watching Netflix,” Katz said.

Katz further explained how some of the larger classes on campus, a lot of which are intro courses, have most of its material online, so missing a class or two here and there doesn’t hurt as much as you’d think.

Overall, the weather will just get more and more interesting as the semester rolls through and brings on the real winter schedule to come.