Illinibucks

Illinibucks is a concept that would permit students to have control over their personal priorities on campus.  Due to the overwhelming amount of individuals at this school, it is difficult to live with the highest convenience.  Many university functions are on a first come first serve or seniority basis.  If UIUC were to provide an allocation of Illinibucks, students would most likely utilize them for registering for classes, finding the closest parking spots, or choosing a room for next year's housing.

Personally, I would spend them to be guaranteed a quiet area to study--especially during exam seasons.  I can't say how many times I have walked inside a library at nighttime and walked around aimlessly for a good period of time looking for a secluded place to get some work done.  From experience, it seems that the busiest times are Sunday evenings.  I admit, I am one of those procrastinators so those are my prime times to study.  Furthermore, being someone who cannot study in their own dorm room or apartment, it truly is a difficult task to find somewhere peaceful and quiet with a desk and an outlet to keep my laptop charged.  Realizing the scarcity of good study spots on campus, I usually have to resort to staying at home tempted by the comfiness of my bed or the box of Oreos in the kitchen cabinet.

Often, I had thought about a hypothetical process of reserving study spaces according to, maybe, the time of our exams or the difficulty levels of the classes.  However, the usage of Illinibucks may just be as effective.  Let's assume that at the beginning of every semester, student were given 50 Illinibucks arbitrary to who was using them, meaning that students could give each other some of their own.  I believe a reasonable price to secure yourself a study spot would be 5-10 Illinibucks depending on the quality of the space—such as level of sound, accessibly to an outlet, lighting, etc.  Libraries, union lounges, or classrooms, should reserve a set number of seats—maybe 3-5 at each building—where Illinibucks could be spent.  The 5-10 Illinibucks would be the transfer price for any students who would use these reserved seats.

If the administered prices were to be too low, then these seats are similar to the free seats because then there will not be enough seats to be offered.  Students may come during the busier study times believing that they could spend their Illinibucks to guarantee themselves seats but encounter the opposite.  For these libraries, the union, or the classroom buildings, it will be presented meaningless to reserve seats, and as a result, they will be released to the public.  On the contrary, if the prices were to be higher, then more students would be unwilling to utilize their Illinibucks and choose to save them as a last resort.  Then, the seats are most likely to stay vacant, which is merely a waste.

I'd imagine the most amount of Illinibucks being spent during final exams.  Of course buildings tend to open up more rooms during this time, but the atmosphere might not be what the students prefer.  For example, in previous semesters, when I searched for a study spot at Ikenberry Commons, I could not find one despite two huge multipurpose rooms being made public.  If there were spots, it'd be next to other people and I personally prefer my own table/desk.  Therefore with Illinibucks in effect and the reserved study spots being at the optimal transfer price, I feel that I would never waste time searching for prime study spots ever again.