Whether you’re a townie, a visitor, or a student, there will inevitably be a moment when you are engaged in a battle of will between your panicking mind and your bladder on campus. Unfortunately, undergraduates tend to get a little too excited about the additional freedoms of life without mommy, so where to relieve oneself in comfort and privacy?

Administrative Offices

An administrative office, if you haven’t already guessed, is a building where students or staff go to pay for tuition (or other services rendered), register for classes, receive financial aid information, or speak with one’s academic dean. Regardless of whether you’re in need of such services, administrative offices are the best places to use the bathroom on a college campus.

First of all, everyone is all business. Administrative offices of all kinds are usually devoid of vending machines of food or drink items so as to preserve the cleanliness of the building–and because no one’s looking for them. Everyone is usually so busy worrying about how to pay off student loans or how well to structure their class schedule in order to graduate on time, that once this very important task is taken care of, they eagerly exit the building. Here, you can guarantee peace, quiet, and sterility during your bathroom run.

Another important feature: no student/staff discrimination. A few of the buildings mentioned hereafter will have bathrooms for everyone (students and passersby) and bathrooms meant for staff. Staff bathrooms are locked–and rather immaculate as a result.

Classroom Buildings

The function of a classroom building may seem self-explanatory, however, there are additional features to such a place that can make it a rather horrible bathroom experience.

As you may have already guessed, classroom buildings are filled with classrooms. It must logically follow, then, that such a facility will be filled with students at almost any given time of the day. While administrative offices will only remain open for a regular business day (nine o’clock in the morning to five o’clock in the evening), classroom buildings can be open until ten at night or later. Not only does this present a slight safety risk (depending on the proximity of the campus to a bustling city), it also means that at any point during the day and subsequent night, there will be people using the bathroom. Unless a classroom building has just recently been constructed, you can guarantee uncomfortable seating, inadequate supplies, frequent visitors, and unpleasant lingering smells.

Classroom buildings can also house faculty offices, and you know what that means: student/staff discrimination. If there actually exists a pleasant place within a classroom building to handle one’s lavatory business, then it is here. Unless you a member of the administration, a faculty member, or other higher-up, don’t even bother attempting to run into one of these bathrooms. This is not to say that you will get into serious trouble, but you are quite likely to annoy a few people upon your departure.

Another essential feature of a classroom building? Vending machines. This may seem like a good thing for those who are sitting around starving during regular (or perhaps even extended) class periods, but for the casual bathroom visitor, this will serve to be the bane of one’s existence.

Departmental Buildings

Departmental Buildings are much more difficult to get into if you are not a member of the faculty/staff or young enough to appear to be a “typical” student. This depends, of course, on how old the school is–or even how old the building itself happens to be. Older buildings tends to be more intimate, so getting in undetected in addition to performing one’s private duties may prove to be an embarrassing feat. The intimacy guarantees cleanliness, but not privacy. You are the culprit–and everyone will know.

On the other hand, the (lack of) intimacy of a departmental building also depends on how big the department is in terms of students who are a part of that particular department. For instance, the Mathematics department will have many more majors and alumni than the Scandinavian Drama department. This is not to say that a visitor will care about such a thing, but as a student it may prove bothersome.

Departmental buildings, because they house the offices of busy intellectuals, will often also house a small kitchen, a vending machine, a water cooler, or at least a microwave. Not only may this result in some leftover odors from the single bathroom’s previous occupant, but there may be a few quizzical looks and lifted eyebrows as the Scandinavian Drama department watches a stranger drift in and out of their midst.

Libraries

Libraries are a mixed bag as far as bathroom quality is concerned. Despite usual university regulations, many people enter the library with bundles of hidden food or drink. Why? Well, during exam times there is a mad rush for quiet time. Studying in one’s room is an impossibility if you live in a dormitory–and have a roommate. (This will be discussed later.) Also, leaving one’s secluded area in a library is risky business. Should an opportunistic passerby see your quiet space unoccupied, they will desperately occupy it themselves.

Libraries often tend to get the least renovation since that would involve moving a majority of their books–and who wants to do that? Younger libraries, specialized libraries, or libraries with special sections are usually the best way to go. You get peace and cleanliness, although a bit less predictability than administrative offices. Libraries can also be a tad more creepy, since library patrons (usually) go out of their way to be extra quiet.

Thus, in a library, you can guarantee peace and quiet, but you can’t count on the facilities being quite up to par.

Student Centers

Student Centers are usually rather large buildings where a great deal of activities take place. From special guest speakers, to fraternity-sponsored activities, to the yelps of a local band, student centers are often bustling with… activity. For the bathroom enthusiast, this can serve as a positive or negative. A busy season, which may include protests, holiday food drives, or men in trench coats handing out the new testament, causes lower level, more visible bathrooms to be constantly stocked.

If your school’s student center contains a bazaar or a cafeteria, this will add to the number of local residents who frequent the school (again, depending on proximity). Student centers, if you haven’t already guessed, are different from dining halls. Dining Halls usually don’t include food from fast food franchises, whereas a student center might. And because of the range of activities offered at a student center, they tend to be more public places, making them easier to enter and exit.

Remember, though, that a building such as a student center is very multifaceted, and there are very likely upper level or less visible bathrooms available to one willing to search… or merely pay attention. More hidden bathrooms, although on the same cleaning schedule as the others, are guaranteed to have more available supplies and less mess. Having a clean, nearly private bathroom within a big facility can cut down on the creepy factor of more intimate settings or generally quiet settings such as libraries.

Dining Halls

The directors of dining halls know to expect a great deal of human traffic throughout the day, so the bathroom of such a building will likely be much bigger than that of an administrative building or a library. Thus, you can avoid accusing glances and silent blame for your lavatory activities. On the other hand, you will be hard pressed to see people entering a dining hall alone, because they tend to be social spaces. Meaning, of course, that you would have to deal with groups of people entering together and having engrossing conversation during their bathroom visit–and yours.

Furthermore, the very nature of a dining hall makes it susceptible to frequent discomfort on the part of its patrons, resulting in the discomfort of other bathroom visitors.

Dormitories

Frankly, dormitories are the absolute worst places to use the bathroom on a college campus. Dormitories, especially co-ed ones, can be bustling at nearly all times of the day or night. Of course, the early morning is the best time to seek peace and quiet in a dormitory–since undergraduates tend to be allergic to the sun rise. And if you should dare to attempt to use a dormitory bathroom during the weekend, well… then… the force be with you.

If your dormitory bathroom visit includes more than toilet-time, and should include a shower or its derivatives, then the crack of dawn is your only hope. One would flourish best going to the bathroom in groups in a dormitory, if you must go at any other time. This rings especially true if you are a visitor to a dorm that may be a little more communal than most.

There exists such a thing as special interest dorms. “Special interests” can include certain majors, hobbies, or languages. So, if everyone knows everyone else, you should travel with a designated resident so as to avoid suspicious glances.

Food and clothing items may be a recurring theme for as long as you reside or merely hang out in a dorm. You may find them in the hallway on your way to the bathroom, in the bathroom itself, or lying conspicuously outside the building.

Dormitory bathrooms may also serve as dens for sexual activity, in an attempt for the residents to escape their roommates. As can be imagined, you won’t have to actually walk in the bathroom to know this may be happening. Silently slip away–if only to save face.

You don’t have to use this guide strictly for what the title implies is its purpose. If you have yet to enroll in college, take this as a short introduction to the many things “they” won’t tell you.