The length of time it takes to walk to the recreation center: 15 minutes.

The length of time it takes to walk to Piedmont Central’s fit room: 5 minutes.

According to my own personal vendetta at least.

In my time of being enrolled in two different institutions including visiting another, while the campuses I visited or lived in have a certain beauty to them whether big or small, open and exposed or closed off and close together, the one building that seems to struck me out is the campuses’ recreation centers. The reason being I feel so impaled about these particular buildings is because they’ve always been to the farthest building to access on campus, especially if one is a resident living on campus.

From my experience of attending and living in Valdosta, the walk from my dorm, Langdale Hall, to the student recreation center was about twenty minutes. According to Google Maps, the walk is twelve minutes. However, if you were lucky enough to catch the shuttle, the ride would be about maybe ten minutes because the shuttle still had to go around the campus and had multiple stops if you were being picked up on North Patterson Street from main campus whereas coming from the recreation center heading back to the main campus dorms only took five minutes.

Even though I did not attend University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, I remember when I visited there that their recreation was nearly a mile from the dorms. They, too, had a campus shuttle system where one could take it instead of walking to there. I feel as though had I lived in or attended the school that it would be nearly a twenty minute walk. According to Google Maps, from the main campus to the facility would only be a nine minute walk.

At Georgia State University, according to my Google Maps app on my phone, the amount of time it would take to walk to the recreation center would be approximately thirteen minutes which isn’t really a far walk. However, as my personal vendetta stated, it only takes five minutes to get from the Piedmont North dorms to the new Piedmont Central dorms. The reason I included the dorms was because Piedmont Central, a new freshmen dorm that just opened this fall semester of 2016, has a fit room with smooth wooden floor, one wall covered with mirrors and a rack full of exercise equipment such as resistance bands, yoga mats and balls. Usually, when I decide to occupy the fit room, there’s either a few other people already there or coming in and out the room to use it as well. For the past few weeks, I have encountered a number of people, including residents of the dorm, that have used the fit room and have save themselves from a trip walking to recreation center.

Even though campus shuttles are available to students, depending on the time of day or day of the week, the walking trips to and from the recreation centers have always stirred students away from making it to the building. Although some would look at the walk as a pre-workout prior to their actual workouts, others would most likely beg to differ. However, I believe that the structure as to why the campus recreation centers are farther than the other buildings on campus is used as a way to promote students healthier habits and lifestyle. That, if one were to attend the rec center and if the shuttle buses weren’t running on a certain day or say the weekend that it challenges the individual to take that “long” to the center pushing them to a better health than relying on a bus to carry them to and from the facility.

However, the installment of such fit rooms will encourage students, especially residents of that building, to occupy the space themselves and save them trips to and from the recreation. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the installments of said fit rooms are most likely to keep residential students away from the campus recreation centers; however, this does encourage the students to be able to “workout at home” if you will so they would still choose the option of maintaining a healthy lifestyle within their own dormitory facility. This also includes other residential students who do not live in the dorm where the fit room is held at but takes advantage of even the slightest of recreation area that is a closer access to them than the recreation center itself. Residential students like myself for example.