Dear Fellow College Student,

As you may know, living in a dorm is mostly essential to the world of college (that is, unless you live off-campus.). All dorms are equipped with stairs because you never know if someone's popcorn is going to cause a massive explosion that's going to force us to evacuate the building. But what some dorms have that other dorms don't are elevators. It doesn't matter if your dorm has four floors or 10 floors, most residence halls on your campus are going to have an elevator.

We all know how much of a pain in the butt it is to haul all of our essentials to our room when it's all the way on the ninth floor. Elevators make that process of moving in and moving out easier and less painful for us. Even during the year, say if you're running late to your class, you don't have to run down nine flights of stairs and risk tripping and breaking your face open. There's an elevator right there for you.

But what about if you don't live on a high floor of your building? What if you live, say, on the second floor of a building that has nine floors and you're just going down to get a cup of coffee compared to the person who's running late to their class and lives on the ninth floor?

To the person who lives on the second or third floor (of a building that contains nine or 10 floors), all I ask of you is this: Please, take the stairs. Seriously, please take the stairs. It doesn't matter if you're late to class, if you're feeling lazy, or if you have heels on. Take the stairs.

The only exceptions where the "going on the elevator on a low floor thing" is fine is if you're injured, you're unable to walk, or you're carrying a lot of items (especially heavy items). That's understandable. But if you aren't injured and you have the capability to walk, WALK! Use some of that leg power of yours and walk up and down those stairs. You can actually burn off some of that Freshman 15 by walking up and down the stairs.

There are only so many elevators in a dorm. Some dorms have three elevators and some dorms only have one. It's easy to become claustrophobic in those tightly spaced boxes when everybody in your dorm is using the elevator all at one time. Shouldn't it bother you when you're so close to the ground floor and then, all of a sudden, someone from the second floor tries to squeeze his/her way in?

Oh, by the way, elevators do break and get stuck. Most elevators in the residence halls are very old and are much more likely to break down. This is, most of the time, caused by the constant overcapacity of people cramming into the elevator all at one time. What are you going to do if all of the elevators (or the elevator) in your residence hall stops working? Are you just going to sit in your room or the lounge until the elevators are all fixed? Fixing elevators can take days, weeks, or months even. I've had an elevator in my hall that was broken since last February and, just recently, it was fixed (for now).

Please be courteous to those who live on the upper floors of a residence hall. Walking up and down one or two flights of stairs is not going to kill you. It's not as bad as going up and down nine flights of stairs. The only time us residents in the upper floors have to walk up and down those flights of stairs is if the fire alarm goes off. Otherwise, upper floor residents need the elevator just as much as you.

So, please, take care of these elevators for future residents of our hall. If you have the ability to walk a flight or so of stairs, please do it. Save us some stress and let's not have broken elevators during a time when we need them most.

Sincerely,

A College Student Who Lives On One Of The Higher Floors Of Her Building