BURRRRR at RU

As you look around Rutgers campus you will notice many students in shorts, jeans, sweats, uggs and flip flops, but Harlem Johnston is perfectly happy in his North Face bubble jacket. Like most students he hates watching the weather.

The weather can be a tricky thing to predict. The past month has left Rutgers students baffled about what to wear and if they should bring a jacket or pack an umbrella, no one really knows.

Some days have surpassed 80 degrees, others got as low as 57 and raining.

“I’d rather be safe than sorry.” This is the mindset of many students, “I can always take my jacket off but if I don’t bring it then I’m screwed.”

You can see Harlem on campus in a crowd bundled up or with his jacket tied around his waist with his beats headphones on, in his own world.

Some students like Harlem don’t even know the weather until they walk out the door and risk being too hot, too cold, or even getting drenched by the rain.

There are many students who just don’t care about what they wear and how it will impact their day. Jordan Lee is no different, he is not fazed by the changes in the weather. “I wear my sweats every day no matter what.

NJ freeze takes over Rutgers

By: Christopher Tangarife

As Derrick Neves gets up from his dorm and begins his morning ritual, he feels the cold air hit him like a car as his feet touch the ice cold floor.

He quickly grabs over to his phone and opens the weather app to see exactly how cold the temperature has drop only to find that it is now hovering in the 40s.

A complete flip from the 70 degree weather experience last week where shorts roamed free. 

Now Derrick must decide if this is a cold blast that will fade in the afternoon or if he must pull out his winter jacket from the dark corner of his closet.

“Dude, this weather is just annoying at this point. I usually dress for the day since I’m in classes for most of the day and don’t feel like going back to my dorm just to change my clothes. So now if I dress incorrectly, I’m either cold for the day or sweating in class with my heavy winter clothes. “

As the weather continues to change in dramatic fashion, Derrick along with fellow students must adapt to the ever changing temperatures throughout their day on campus.

Speaking to Daniel Martinez, a 21 year old student, he says that he simply packs a pair of shorts on the days that start off cold and might get hot later on. He looks at multiple news apps in order to try and get an idea of how the weather will be for the day.

Students are simply taking this as being immersed in the college life by adapting what life throws at you when you’re no longer living with your parents.

Sarah Martinez added that “If you want to know what NJ is in a basic nutshell, this weather will tell you everything you need to know. One day you could be wearing a cute top and the next day you could look like an overstuffed bear wearing 3 sweaters and winter jacket. “

Dorms are also not the most well insulated places, you can feel the cold creep in from all over the room.  When you are a college student, you love sleep, and when something gets in the way of that you grow a hatred for it. 

“I hate waking up in the middle of the night because of the temperature all of a sudden dropping and me freezing my ass off. It’s not like I can turn on the heater and turn it off at will, the dorms suck and I have to try and adapt to it, which I guess is part of the college life in a way “says Derrick Neves.

Things won’t be getting any better with Artic blast looking to hit NJ this week with a possibility of snow on top of that.  

Students will be bundling up very quickly in preparation for this Artic blast , with trips to the clothing store and food market they will sure be trying to stay warm and filled during this winter.

Derrick added “I’d rather be over bundled and warm then freezing my nads off because I was cheap or brushed aside the weather signs.”

Rutgers Students Respond To Changing Weather

Randy DeGregorio

Brian Jozwiak found himself walking to a Rutgers bus stop in the middle of a seventy-degree day wearing long pants and a heavy winter coat.

He notices everyone around him is in shorts and short sleeves as he starts to sweat and become overheated a bit.

Jozwiak never realized how much the weather can change in just a few hours.

“I woke up early today and it was close to freezing outside,” Jozwiak said. “I go to one class and when I get out, it feels like summer.”

During this time of year, Rutgers students can find themselves in dramatic and various weather changes in short periods of time, which has gotten mostly negative opinions.

Most students can be frustrated during this time because the weather is difficult to predict, making outfit choices an even bigger challenge.

Sophomore Kyle Trinidad claims to spend almost a half hour sometimes just on deciding what to wear and bring with him to class.

“I cannot decide what to wear anymore,” Trinidad said.

He said it is nearly impossible to be perfectly dressed, what one wears will make them too hot or too cold at at least one point throughout the day.

He also mentions that even sometimes, regardless of the outside weather, classroom temperatures can also be changing.

Senior Tiffany Longo believes that the classroom temperatures at Rutgers are worse than the outdoors during this time of year.

Since the weather is frequently changing, so are the classrooms which can make it even harder to decide what to wear.

“I could be walking into a sauna one day and a freezer the next” said Longo, “It can be very uncomfortable if you are not prepared”.

Longo even added that she sometimes brings three different sweatshirts and jackets to class to make sure she has the right fit for each temperature.

Sophomore Tommy Best said that the weather during this time can also make someone ill.

“When you keep switching from the cold to hot this often,” said Best, “it causes headaches and sometimes really bad allergies”.

Best added that last year he had to miss a full week of classes because he became so sick.

Rutgers Students Torn Over Dynamic Shift in Weather

By: Jillian Reyes

On a cold Monday morning, Amanda Girello is left wrapped in her blankets contemplating whether or not she should get out of bed and brace the cold. 

Just a few days ago, the mornings were relatively warm and sunny with the occasional crisp, fall breeze. Now that November is here, it’s as if Mother Nature is suddenly awake and ready for winter.

“I love fall weather when it’s a little chilly out and all you need is a light jacket, but it’s like we jumped right to winter this year with a few days of fall in between,” said Girello, a Rutgers junior.

By the time November comes around, many students are left struggling through exam season while having to constantly worry about their wardrobe choices. Most days on campus start and end in freezing temperatures, yet reach mild temperatures in the afternoon.

Such unpredictable weather leads to unnecessary stress among students when deciding what to wear since the weather can’t seem to stick to one season.

Girello usually loves the changing of the seasons and appreciates being able to walk around campus admiring the changing colors of the leaves. But lately, she has found herself dreading any time she has to spend outside.

“I usually get stuck walking to work in the freezing cold but by the time I walk back a few hours later I'm sweating because of all the layers I had to put on in the morning,” said Girello.

The same issue stands true even for those who prefer to not roll out of bed for class until the afternoon. In these instances, student tend to run into the opposite issue of dressing for the warmer temperatures when leaving the house and left freezing during their walk back home.

Rutgers junior Victoria Pinard finds the dynamic shifts in weather irritating. Since she grew up with her father in the Air Force, she has lived just about everywhere from Japan to Alaska, so adapting to new weather patterns is nothing new to her.

“This weather here is more of an inconvenience than anything because you need to pack your backpack up with a bunch of layers just to make it through the day without either sweating or freezing,” said Pinard.

While packing layers and worrying about your wardrobe may get annoying, some students actually find the weather this time of year relaxing. It’s finally time for fall fashions to get into full swing and the weather basically invites you treat yourself, according to Rutgers junior Lauren Giammarco.  

Giammarco looks forward to her coffee runs and bundling up in sweaters and scarves when it’s cold out. Thinking about coffee and fashion choices helps to relieve some of the stress that’s built up at this point from midterm season.

“The weather this time of year gets me so excited. It gives you the best excuse to cozy up with a scarf and a hot cup of coffee, regardless of how you spend your time between classes,” said Giammarco.

Weather story Ryan Sahlin

As the alarm echoes off the walls of his room, Corey Joergens reaches for it, quickly shutting it off while checking the weather app on his phone. He begrudgingly rolls out of bed and stares at his open closet. 

He grabs shorts than pants than shorts again.

Finally, he decides on sweatpants and begins to get ready for the rest of his day. Unfortunately, this decision to wear pants usually backfires leaving Joergens sweating throughout the day. 

 

November has brought with it some unpredictable weather, fluctuating between extremely warm and cold temperatures, sometimes within the same day.

Although the weather may seem like a minute and unimportant detail for some, for students who are out and going to class, the fluctuating temperatures can be frustrating.

It's inconvenient. It’s warm when it should be cold” Joergens states explaining that when it is seventy degrees outside he can’t decide if it is fall or still summer.

  This is what makes figuring out what to wear challenging for students that are always moving around campus. Not only do you have to plan for the temperature outside of the classroom but you also have to take into account the temperature of the buildings that you will be spending your time in.

According to Joergens, the lecture halls can get hot especially if there are no windows.

“This is probably the worst part, it takes a week or so for the school to transition between the hot and cold weather.” Joergens says. For students, this can mean that they can be freezing when they get to class, but hot while they are inside the classroom.

The change in the weather isn’t just an inconvenience.  For some students, the weather can also take a toll on their health. Anna Convery explains that this type of weather always makes her sick.

“When it’s hot one day and cold the next, it messes with my sinuses and I always end up getting a cold.”  Whenever the seasons change, Convery can tell that she is going to get sick because she will start to feel like she always wants to sleep. Then she starts to feel “crummy”. The worst part is, she knows she must continue doing the things she needs to do and can’t afford to take a break.

 She explains that even though she would like to be able to plan for each day’s changing weather, most of the time she ends up winging it leaving her uncomfortable most of the time. If she dresses for warm weather she is cold and if she dresses for cold weather she is hot .

The answer to dealing with the changing temperature may be a lot easier than one would think. Frank Maguire explains that when the weather is like this, he is always in a sweatshirt and shorts. This way he is still comfortable.

This allows him to throw a sweatshirt on if he is cold and put it in his backpack if he is warm.  This may be the simplest solution when it comes to dealing with the weather in November. 

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.

Rutgers Students Aren’t Akin to Recent Weather

Rutgers Students Aren’t Akin to Recent Weather

By Julia DeAngelo

Arms folded in annoyance, Emily Esposito stood shivering as she waited for a bus to class.

She decided it was better to go without a coat that gray morning, since the weather was supposed to hike 20 degrees that afternoon. Although she almost always regrets it, Esposito says it's better to face short-lived morning cold than to sweat in layers that afternoon.

Her strategy to combat bipolar temperatures begins with comfortability. On days she has to roll out of bed for morning classes, the first thing Esposito does is check the weather on her phone to prepare for either a good or bad day.

“As soon as I get up, I check my weather app.” Esposito said, “I know I’ll generally have a good day if the weather isn’t going to fluctuate, since it's easier to prepare for and not worry about.”

Like many of her classmates at Rutgers University, Esposito has grown impatient toward the seasonal changes. Some students appreciate how warm summer weather seems to be seeping into the fall, but when daily temperature varies an aggravation arises.

These frustrations stem from the unpredictability of weather patterns. During the transition into autumn, students tend to think that outdoor conditions jump from one extreme to the other too quickly.

Emma Gillis, a junior at Rutgers, explained how the flip flop weather negatively affects her daily routine. She expressed how alternating hot and cold, or in her words “uncomfortable,” weather dampens her overall mood and is a stressor she does not want.

“Inconvenient weather makes me anticipate a bad day, because of the hassle of getting

through the weather on top of the things I have to do.” Gillis said.

The temperature changes also affect many student’s physical health and well-being. Fluctuations of this kind can result in things ranging weakened immune systems and common colds to chapped lips.

Ethan Greenberg is also Rutgers student who has felt the physical consequences weather changes can have on the body. Although he was lucky to escape from a cold, Greenberg joked about stocking up on Chapstick and taking care of his weathered skin.

“I find that the temperature fluctuations we are currently experiencing do quite a number on my skin’s moisture balance.” He chuckled, “It seems really trivial, but having dry facial skin can burn and itch. It does not feel good.”

On the contrary, there are some scarlet knights who would rather bypass the short spurts of summer and skip to the cold. In their opinion, middle to late fall months have a certain air that's been missed out on.

James Sands is one of those people, and his longing for winter is main cause of his frustrations. Unlike the other students who dislike recent forecasts because of varying extremes, Sands simply wants the warm to end and the cold to begin.

“It should be colder.” Sands said, “It upsets me because fall is my favorite season and we’ve seemed to have lost it.”

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.”