Another day to study

By the looks of the students playing Guitar Hero on a big-screen TV and others with legs up on tables, cradling laptops, Oklahoma Christian University was taking a power outage in stride.

Half the campus — including classroom buildings, offices and apartments — has been without power since about 3 a.m. The half of the Edmond campus that includes the Edward L. Gaylord Student Activity Center has power, and students were notified via text messages (at least those who had signed up for the service) that there was food, heat and Internet access if they wanted to make the trek over.

Many did.

Students studied and played games of pool or surfed the Web, dressed as they normally would for an early final. Still, some had been inconvenienced: One couple fed a bottle to their 5-week-old baby; another student, an Arizona resident who said she would graduate this week, worried her parents wouldn’t be able to see her graduation and Oklahoma for the first time.

Finals have been rescheduled for tomorrow and later, depending on the weather.

Junior Spencer Goad was playing pool in the student center, wondering how his delayed finals would affect his plans to return home to Oregon Thursday evening.

As things stand, he has three finals Tuesday. “It’s not over until 7:15,” he said.

If they’re rescheduled because of a continued outage, he said he wasn’t sure what to focus on.

“The hard part is knowing what to study for right now … what final is coming up next,” he said.

Jeff Bigelow, an associate professor who chairs the electrical engineering department, acknowledged the difficulty on students such as Goad.

“I know it’s stressful to the students to have all their schedules switched around and delayed,” he said.

Bigelow cancelled a final because it wouldn’t affect students’ grades. One student who stood to gain from the final will be able to take it, Bigelow said.

Having an extra day to study can’t be all bad.

Jeff Raymond, Medical Writer

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