Quiet Places to Study in College

Colleges have evolved over time from educational centers to local night clubs, metaphorically speaking. With so many party goers and loud music enthusiasts there are only so many quiet places to study in college that a person can go to even while they might not be the most ‘study friendly’ places.

Quiet Study Spaces

The Kaplan Test Center rates that the library is one of the best places that a student can go. Environments in a library can go as low as 44 DB which is about 4DB lower than an actual bird call.

However, not everyone (myself included) can study in complete silence. Depending on the school, some libraries do actually have different floors that tolerate different levels of noise. In my college library, the basement was loudest, but as you went up a level, the levels got quieter and quieter, until you made it to the 5th floor – also known as the silent floor.

Below are some other options for quiet, but not too quiet, study spaces.

Studying in Empty College Classrooms

What students tend to do, as of recent studies by Kaplan, are to go to empty classrooms that are left unlocked. Noise levels rarely go above 50 DB, but they are considered good options due to the fact that they are spread throughout campus and not just in one place like a library.

I would do this a lot at school because,

The classrooms were usually closer to where I lived than the libraries
There was a lot more availability of space to spread out, especially if you had a group
It was more acceptable to do group work there because you could use a full room and be as loud as you needed without disturbing others

Some issues that can come along here – sometimes the building and classrooms get locked at a certain hour and it’s no longer an option. Also, people try to study in these rooms at all hours of the day, and at some point you’re going to get kicked out by a professor whose class is about to start.

Studying in Common Areas

Depending on the college you attend, there really are an abundance of common study areas other than the library. There were a lot of common areas for us to study in, including the common area for the dorms, the different food courts, or even at a picnic table outside.

The common areas in college definitely aren’t as quiet as the libraries are, but like I said earlier, not everyone like studying in silent areas all the time. Some people also just like to have a change of scenery every once in a while.

The common areas are also favored by those who need to work in groups without disturbing those around them. For example, if you were to grab a table at the food court, it’s already a social place so there’s no need to worry about being quiet for the sake of others.

Creating A Quiet Study Space

Other times, you really just don’t feel like going anywhere and are working alone so you just stay home. Whether you’re sharing a dorm room with another person or in an apartment, you should be able to create a quiet study space for yourself where you live.

If you have a noisy roommate in a tiny dorm room, your only doable option is just to put on some noise canceling headphones and ignore them. However, if you can hear everything going on outside your dorm windows, installing soundproof curtains can help you block out most outside noise bothering you while you study. You can even pair that with a white noise machine to drown out any other disturbing noises that might be coming from the hallways.

You definitely have more options for creating a quiet study space in an apartment. Here, you can hang soundproof curtains on the windows and even a sound blocking door cover on your bedroom door if you have louder roommates.

Surprisingly you may experience an issue here as well – some dorms and apartments may not let you put holes in the walls in order to hang anything like soundproof curtains.

You really do have a lot of choices here. We know not everyone has the same study preferences, so hopefully we covered one of your favorite college study areas here.