Parking is always a problem for University students because there are more students than parking spaces. During exam season, time is more precious and the question of whether to park far away and walk, or wait until a student leaves his parking space, is a daily torment. After parking their car, students’ second task is finding a place in the University library.

At this point in time, just weeks before students sit for their exams, lecture halls aren’t the only crowded spaces. All students ditch the coffee shops and join the PhD students who have been typing away in the library beside empty desks and chairs since the last exam period. Suddenly the library has no space, and given its limited opening hours, students are faced with a double mission impossible.

Just as the University Students Council (KSU) cannot paint white parking spaces blue to provide for students, it also cannot increase the library’s capacity. Yet, a solution has been found. KSU took the initiative to push for more study areas to be made available on campus and for longer library opening hours.

KSU president Thomas Bugeja says he had first approached the University library with this idea in 2011. This was the start of a very fruitful collaboration with the library, with the extended library hours now being a yearly fixture, both for the January and June sessions. The extension now also covers the Mater Dei library, as well as Saturdays. Currently the main campus and Health Sciences libraries are open from 8am to 11pm from Mondays to Fridays and from 9am to 4.45 pm on Saturdays.

For the first time ever, University students have a study area accessible round the clock

Bugeja says the next ‘natural step’ was to use the common room to supplement the extended hours. This is now available from 11pm to 9am, which means that for the first time ever, University students have a study area accessible round the clock.

The common room is now set up with desks, chairs, extensions, wifi and coffee-making facilities (the latter as from this week) to ensure a comfortable working environment. Around 30 students used it on its first day and left at around 2am. Other early birds used it before the lectures started the following morning.

Michelle Grech is a 1st year Bachelor of Laws student and writer at Insite Malta.