You take the tour.

 The waif gestures around the room where you're standing. "This was supposed to be a common area for all the student groups to share. By putting groups together, they were supposed to collaborate, share resources, save money, collect ideas, bond the community together.

 "Instead, they designed the space so that it was too cramped to make sense, stuck a whole bunch of random groups together, and then left them to work it out. Naturally, the groups work it out by completely ignoring the other groups, except in the case of groups who are forced to share an office, who instead choose to ignore the other group's needs."

 He turns you around and pushes you through the doors so that you're overlooking an enormous room, designed vaguely like a ski lodge.

 "This is Tilton Hall. This was supposed to be the biggest, most important place on campus. And it is, by virtue of the exquisite lameness of all the other places in the school.

 "Tilton was supposed to be multipurpose, capable of handling any type of activity with equal grace. It works: any type of event can be held here with equal unpleasantness.

 "It's too social to be good for studying, too empty to be good for being social. Its lighting stinks, its sound is pure mud, its acoustics prevent any event from being audible, its air is nonexistent, its atmosphere manages to be both claustrophobic and cavernous. The walls are almost a square acre of unbroken white because Tilton himself refuses to put any color on the walls. It's a three-story architectural abortion. But of course, the UC itself fits that description, too."

 "Surely not everything in this building stinks."

 "Just wait and see, hot shot."

Turn to Page 54.