Sparks Hall, also known as the resource hall, is the site of many classes and resources offered at Georgia State to help students and specific organization or demographics of students. Sparks Hall has many different places including the Scholarship Resource Center, Supplemental Instruction, Office of International Student and Scholar Services, One Stop Shop, Student Accounts, Financial Aid, and the Office of Undergraduate Admissions to name a few. It also contains the Departments of Anthropology and Geosciences along with the General Ed classes that are in Sparks Hall.

It is either loud or quiet, depending on which floor you usually are on. In my case on Jan. 26, 2016 at 8am in the morning, the hallway was very loud due to the machines in the mechanical room. Each hallway has a great degree of reverberation, as I was able to hear the footsteps and breathing of someone all the way on the opposite end of the hallway.  It is one of GSU’s more older buildings, as there are areas like the men’s bathrooms on the third floor which are based on the older school design of being low to the ground, no separating walls, and broken tiles along with the dirt, dust, and grime of an unclean bathroom. Temperatures constantly fluctuate in the school also.

In my observation, the classrooms of Sparks Hall make me feel focused or bored because of the absence of color, renovation, and interactivity and I along many students/teachers get angry because things like the projector screen and computers usually are not working more so than other buildings. The classroom doors are wooden with metal plates on the bottom that has collected dirt, dust, and grime from the years and the doors usually muffle voices coming from the classroom itself. There is no color in any of the rooms or hallways and the air smells normal.

Another aspect of the building is how the design is very normal and straight forward so nothing sticks out and the stairs are bifurcated to allow an easy flow of people walking up and down the stairs. In my observation the artifacts I saw are flyers for different organizations, signs for different areas, and trash left on the grounds of Sparks Hall. The flyers were organized in alphabetical order and the locations on the signs were organized in the order of distance from where the sign was located.

The site advertises itself mostly through word of mouth and on maps of Georgia State University and it targets it’s intended users by being a location they have to go through to access required classes or the resources located there. All in all, Sparks Hall is to me an excellent place to get things done in, but not to marvel at aesthetically or socially.

Digital Record 1: This was a pencil I found on the 4th floor. This is usually what one can find in Sparks Hall outside or inside its classrooms.

Digital Record 2: This one of the signs found in Sparks Hall. It directs the flow of traffic and shows where the different areas on the floor are located. The sign is good because it is colored in the GSU colors giving it a more unifying feeling with GSU to me.

Digital Recording 3: This is a recording from inside my English classroom in Sparks Hall. Notice the sounds such as the air conditioning and other things.

Digital Recording 4: This from my Spanish class in Sparks Hall. Some of the same sounds and some different sounds.

Digital Record 5: this a picture of the water fountain. It still has a stick saying its lead free from a long time ago I’m assuming