![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/files\/2010\/12\/img_restaurants_lamont.gif\")
<\/a>Because pictures are not allowed in Lamont during Reading Period, here is a picture I grabbed off of Google Images. This is the Lamont Cafe, but imagine it packed to the brim with students.<\/p><\/div>\n
Need to get some real work done?\u00a0 No problem, just head back a little further on the first floor to the quiet study section, where you will find an open workspace filled with more lounge chairs and cubicles.\u00a0 There you can still feel part of the world as you shoot silent glances across the room to your roommate or watch your friend from Life Sci receive your Facebook chat asking about the third question on the problem set.<\/p>\n
But find even that much interaction too distracting to be productive?\u00a0 Try the second floor where there are desks set up among the stacks or the third floor where there is another quiet study room with more cubicles and fewer lounge chairs.<\/p>\n
Ahhh!\u00a0 You just got a text from your Spanish partner reminding you that you need to finish up that group project tonight, and Lamont Caf\u00e9 is too full!\u00a0 Not a problem, there is a large group-study space in the basement with plenty of large desks to spread your stuff out, and swivel chairs.<\/p>\n
Right now, you might be thinking, \u201cGee\u2026 Lamont Library really has everything a person might need\u2026 food, comfortable chairs for naps, study space, books, computers, friends to talk to, and it NEVER closes.\u201d\u00a0 And you would be right.\u00a0 Thus, the Lamonster.\u00a0 The Lamonster is the terrifying creature within us all that lurks the bookshelves late into the night and doesn\u2019t ever leave.\u00a0 The Lamonster eats, sleeps, and works all in the same building, only glimpsing the sun through the windows and only venturing outdoors to go to class.\u00a0 The Lamonster is very, very real.\u00a0 And no time is more conducive to Lamonster behavior than Reading Period.<\/p>\n
As I sit in one of Lamont\u2019s first-floor lounge chairs, I can hear the pitter-patter of fingers on keyboards, the scratch of pages being turned, and the faint tin of various types of music blasting through earphones.\u00a0 I have not become a Lamonster today. \u00a0Soon I will pack up my studying and head home to Pennypacker.\u00a0 But last week was a different story.<\/p>\n
I have a very strange exam schedule.\u00a0 I had my two-part Spanish exam last week during Reading Period (I know, I thought this strange too) and my 15-page final paper in Celtic History due last Friday.\u00a0 While this was a completely manageable amount of work, I spent quite a few hours in Lamont.\u00a0 Because I am easily distracted and find that I cannot help but talk to every single person I recognize when work is the other option, I worked on the third floor… for a looooooonnnnngg time.\u00a0 As I am not guaranteed that my teachers (or my mom) will not read this, I will not tell you just HOW late I was up the night before my Celtic paper was due, but let\u2019s just say, that it was very, very late\u2026 or should I say early?<\/p>\n
But even I have to admit, it\u2019s kind of cool to have a place to go when you\u2019re uber-stressed about a test, a paper, a presentation, and find a community of equally hard-working students!\u00a0 It can be depressing to see the light of the early morn in you room by yourself after a night of work, but in Lamont, you are always guaranteed to have company.\u00a0 I should also note here that not everyone at Harvard becomes a Lamonster.\u00a0 If you have even half-decent time management skills and place even a little value on sleep, you will be a perfectly healthy and happy student with good study habits.\u00a0 But if you happen to be like me and have no ability to manage time and a propensity to put assignments off, just know, you will never be alone in Lamont!<\/p>\n