Whether it’s due to drunken roommates, a broken computer or just to avoid the temptation of crawling into bed when that paper is due in five hours, many Binghamton University students have, at one point or another, sucked it up and spent the night in the library. But, for one Bearcat, the Glenn G. Bartle Library isn’t just a 24-hour refuge to avoid academic annihilation — it’s home.
Senior Justen Nestico, who is graduating with a mathematics degree this semester, finished out his final days by taking up full-time residency in the library.
“I’m a super senior,” Nestico explained, “so I got a lot of financial aid cut this semester, and since I was graduating in December, I didn’t want to deal with paying for a one-year lease when I only needed a place to stay for a few months.”
Nestico’s confidence in his plan stemmed from past experience preparing for finals. “When I had to cram for tests,” he said, “I’d go in when the library first went 24 hours, and I’d bring a cooler full of Red Bull and Pop-Tarts and wouldn’t leave for days. I just figured maybe I could pull it off for a whole semester.”
Although he’s cut back on Pop-Tarts, Nestico lived almost entirely off vending machine snacks and pizza from the New University Union for the past four months. “The backseat of my car is a mess of candy bar wrappers and dirty underwear,” he said. And he still kills time at night by “wandering around” or going on Facebook, except now he‘s not procrastinating — he’s distracting himself from the noise of industrial strength vacuum cleaners.
It didn’t take long for Nestico to adjust, though. He now knows the exact times that every bathroom in Bartle gets cleaned, so he “always gets first crack.” His daily routine usually started by going to a local gym. “I’d just wake up early every morning and go there. I’d bring a change of clothes with me, brush my teeth, shave. All that stuff.” When asked why he picked Court Jester, located near the Oakdale Mall, he said “it was a little more expensive, but the showers were nicer.”
He might have splurged on the gym, but overall, Nestico’s plan was a huge financial success when compared to the alternatives. With a meal plan (which, thanks to hunger-striker Aaron Akaberi, we all know is required), a spot in a standard dorm room on campus costs about $4,744 a semester — and if it’s in Mountainview, you can add another $200. Single apartments in Susquehanna and Hillside, where meal plans are optional, cost $3,516 per semester; venturing off-campus to an apartment at the University Plaza housing complex will cost you at least $615 a month. Even renting on the West Side, notorious for its remarkably low prices, costs about $300 a month, before you tag on the additional expenses of cable, Internet and utilities.
But the one thing noticeably lacking from Nestico‘s living situation was company. “It was a lot harder living there than I thought,” he explained, “especially for the first month or so, before I had a lot of work to do. The library was always empty, so I’d get really bored and lonely in there. The isolation was starting to get to me.”
On weekends Nestico would crash at friends’ apartments or drive to his home in Syracuse. His parents weren’t in the dark about his living situation, he said, but his mom wasn’t too happy about it either — “She was afraid I was gonna get thrown out of school or something,” he said.
And she wasn‘t the only one. “I was always scared they’d kick me out,” Nestico said, “but they never did. Although I did have people poke me and wake me up to tell me I was snoring.“
While they never said anything to him, he’s pretty sure some of the desk attendants knew what he was doing. “I saw the same people every night,” he explained, adding that he usually wore the same set of clothes as well — a grey hoodie, blue track pants, brown pea coat. But, since he wasn’t making a scene, there wasn‘t much reason to bother him. “It wasn’t like I was laying on the floor in a sleeping bag,” he added.
When asked if he’s excited to be leaving BU — and Glenn G. — behind, Nestico replied with enthusiasm: “[I’m] so excited. Just to be able to go home and live like a normal human. I lived like a hunter and gatherer, just walking around, eating whatever I could find and setting up camp wherever I felt like it.”
Additional perks will include not having to use a public toilet and adding variation to his diet. “I’m getting kind of sick of pizza,” he admitted.