Weather Story - Ryan Allen

Rutgers sophomore Diana Meyers often finds herself asking how many layers to wear in the morning. The space heater in her room is a compromise she’s come to accept. “The insulation in this house is terrible. I learned to stop using the central heat after getting the bill my first month here.”

Students have expressed discontent with the recent dip in New Brunswick’s temperature following a sustained stretch of warmer days.

Meyers likens the fluctuation to coffee that has suddenly gone cold. “One day I felt the sun on my face on the way to class, and the next day I couldn’t feel my face itself,” she adds.

Many off-campus residents are experiencing the same central heating issue as Meyers. The included cost of heating is one of the few generally accepted advantages of dorms. “I basically live at Rockoff Hall in December. My friends there blast the heat all day and don’t even have to think about it,” Meyers says.

Alex Lyu, who lives three blocks from Meyers, admitted that the weather was his one point of concern after accepting his admission to Rutgers. “I’ll be honest. In the middle of my first semester here, I was starting to wish I chose UC Davis instead. This year hasn’t been so bad, but there are a lot of mornings where walking to class is a big ask.”

The change in weather has put a hold on many outdoor sports, including soccer, tennis, and volleyball. If not the wind or temperature, it’s the rain that eliminates their potential.

Another effect of the harsher weather has to do with one of students’ biggest concerns: their waistlines. The latter part of fall semester is usually where most of the dreaded “freshman 15” are gained, when it’s too cold to fit 10,000 steps into a day.

Not only are students unable to walk adequately, but as a result, gyms are constantly operating at (and often over) capacity. To make the problem worse, the unfavorable walking conditions cause more students to get food delivered. Food delivery choices are frequently less healthy than what would have been had at a dining hall or made at home.

Brower Commons employee Patricia Davies points out the difference in student decision making when a spectrum of options is right in front of them. “I see so many kids start by walking over to the pizza, think about it for a sec, look around, then go get broccoli and chicken instead,” she says.

Older Rutgers students are used to the abrupt shift in climate that typically happens around this time of year. Some have come to have a positive attitude about it. Engineering student Kenneth Zong says that he sees the colder days as a nice contrast to the summer. Others, however, remain firmly against the cold. Graduate student Avi Desai sums it up simply: “There’s nothing nice about the cold, so cold days aren’t nice.”