Harrelson Hall On The Way Out
by Akula Wolf on Jan 6, 2012 8:01 AM EST
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PrintI really enjoyed this brief retrospective on Harrelson Hall by Goodnight Raleigh, probably because I spent the bulk of my college career in that silly building. "One of the most unsatisfactory academic buildings imaginable," indeed. I'm disappointed those faculty members didn't include some sort of historical metaphor though. I love this note:
Long time History department member Joe Hobbs has for decades told his students to "take a brick with them" as they leave his classes. He hoped to slowly demolish Harrelson, brick by brick.
I had Dr. Hobbs one semester, and while I don't recall ever hearing this phrase from him, it sounds completely in character. He was the old man who didn't have time for anyone's bullshit. It was great. He was the curmudgeon I never had in my family.
And he was right. It's a stupid building, like some sick joke for freshmen. "Okay, so I go up these stairs here, and then it's just a simple...wait, which way should I go? There's an inner ring of classrooms? Maybe I'll take the ramp next time. Look at me, I'm swirling up a building! Holy shit this ramp is the most inefficient knowledge delivery system ever devised. Cool. Now I am triple lost. What class did I come here for again?"
I'll miss the place, though. Can't spend as much time there as I did and not start to appreciate the thing for its quirks. I always meant to get one of those street luge boards and ride from the top of the building to the bottom.
(Check out all the grass that used to surround the building.)
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Blow it up!
I hate that building. Most of my time was spent in Daniels, but I did plenty of time in Harrelson. PITA to find anything, and really hard to concentrate with the terrible environmental controls and lighting. There was no worse building on campus. I sort of wish I could get a brick from it, so I could crush it with a sledge.
this is begging for captions
Snapped my ankle on the giant stairs and can’t find ST311, but who
needs all that when you’ve got a TAB and some Bonkers! in the old
Jansport?
I am of mixed emotions
I was not a math or history guy, yet I still managed almost every f’n semester to get stuck in that building. While part of me would like to personally tear it to the ground, part of me wants future generations to have to suffer that place as well.
To be an NC State grad suggests one can tolerate torture, and Harrelson is part of the initiation.
To be an NC State grad suggests one can tolerate torture…
Truly profound.
by non_sequitur on Jan 6, 2012 11:50 AM EST up reply actions
I had an econ lab, spanish class and math class in that building
I never made it to any of them but the Math classes (right off the stairs). I actually dropped the Spanish class because I couldn’t find the room.
They should build a giant wolf building in its place…
I actually liked that building.
Does that make me weird? You never knew where you were going to come out.
I had tons of classes there. Pretty much every math class (all the way up to DiffEQ2) and a history class.
ditto
I liked the building, it was unique and I had a ton of classes in it. All my math and history classes were in that thing. It sure was an ugly building though, and saying that about a campus full of ugly buildings speaks volumes.
Best part of it? Rollerblading under it - and down the spiral ramp
Worst part? Trying to find a bathroom in time when you have to run out of class grossly hungover…
haha
…grossly hungover…
My first semester I went up to my 8:05 MA141 professor (in Harrelson) to ask a question before class, and about midway through our exchange she told me to go home because I smelled “like a brewery” from drinking the previous night.
Just graduated this year
During my time, Harrelson had become like, the island of lost toys. Most of the foreign language and history classes were in Withers, and a lot of the math department had managed to get themselves temporarily moved before the swanky new building opened. As a result, most of the classes in Harrelson by then were intro courses taught by profs who didn’t have enough stroke to get their class moved to somewhere else. I took a french class there as a freshman, and I will never forget wandering into the building to find my professor struggling to find the room the class was in, looking as lost and confused as I was on semi-daily basis. Yep, Harrelson was so bizarre, even the profs got baffled.
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