The one time I was almost arrested for studying

Yes. You read that correctly. I once was almost “arrested” for studying on campus late at night. My friend Katie and I were enrolled in a Public Relations Research class and were required to submit a 20-page paper by morning. As all good students do, we saved the bulk of the assignment for the days leading up to the deadline. It was around 10 p.m. when we first arrived at Gaylord College to use the computer labs to print out our articles. The labs closed at 2 a.m. I was under the impression from multiple peers that our college was available to study in past the doors being locked if you were already inside. In fact, I had talked to someone just days prior about them spending the night in the college. Katie and I decided that we were being too productive in that moment to pack our things and move to the Union. There are tables on the first floor that are surrounded by outlets and plenty of room to spread out our hundreds (not exaggerating) of papers. Katie sat at one table and I at the other. We looked up from time to time and asked one another grammatical questions, but other than that were extremely focused on the task at hand. The minutes tacked on, but we were getting more accomplished than we had in days. Besides the lights constantly shutting off due to lack of movement on the main floor, it became my favorite spot to study on campus. At approximately 5 in the morning, we heard voices speaking to us from the third floor. They came from our janitors, and they were asking if we had been there all night. I assumed that they were simply being sweet and feeling sorry for us, so I replied that ‘yes, we have been here all night. Isn’t that crazy?’ With that response came another voice, from an older male, telling us that we weren’t allowed to be there and that they were told not to speak to intruders, but were letting us know that if we did not leave the cops would be called. Katie and I were shocked to say the least. To say this killed our productivity is an understatement. As we put our books, papers, computer, pens, etc. into our bag we overheard them say that since we were taking too long to call the police. I’m not sure how quickly they thought it would take to put our table-filling supplies away, but I was uneasy after hearing them come to a final conclusion. Mind you, up to this point I had never gotten anything as little as a speeding ticket, so I imagined the conversation I would have with my parents from jail would be like. Of course I was being overly dramatic, but it crossed my mind. Luckily for us, we made it out of Gaylord before we had any sighting of the police. We got our papers completed hours before they were due, and learned that if you are going to study late night in our college, to stay in rooms and crannies that aren’t out in the open.