Crowded Lines, Endless Noise Pollution from Construction makes Blacksburg Campus unpleasant.

    The Blacksburg Campus of Virginia Tech recently welcomed back students for the fall semester of 2022 with mixed reactions. The constant noise pollution because of construction taking place on multiple parts of the Blacksburg campus, alongside elongated lines and crowded areas on buses and at dining halls has made for a noticeable unpleasant difference in day to day lives for students and faculty alike. 

 

    Junior Will Ables states, “I’ve been around (the areas of) Dietrich Hall and New Classroom Building and It’s just loud, even with headphones in. I also (take the) bus to class and eat in the dining halls and the wait times and lines feel worse than my previous 2 years here for sure.” 

 

    Virginia Tech in recent years has statistically been admitting more students to the university as a lot of the construction is mainly to refurbish the campus to make it appear cleaner and construct more Dormitory’s and residential areas for Students. For Fall of 2020 Virginia Tech had enrolled 30,016 total students, up from 29,300 students in 2019 showing a 2.4% increase. Even with the Pandemic Virginia Tech’s size as a school is definitively growing year on year. 

 

    Matthew Lindsay, an employee for Virginia Tech’s, Newman Library Services commented, “At the beginning of the semester we typically have a lot of demand for services, but this year it does feel like it’s reached another level. I think they have let more students in this year than in the past.” 

 

    Overall, Virginia Tech will have to cope with the larger student population and the problems that may arise if it wants to continue its growth at the university as the trends have shown recently. 

            

    Lindsay remarked, “Of course the stress ebbs and flows with a big wave arriving at the beginning of the semester but our services have been stretched and there’s more demand and less availability for things like electronics and it has affected students and some faculty in their daily lives.”