The construction that has plagued Bakersfield College is a hot topic that has been discussed over and over during the last couple of months. As students, there is really nothing that we can do about the current construction except be careful and continue on with our daily routine.

There is something that can be done about an even bigger problem that the school is facing and doesn’t seem to get enough attention: the aging interior of many of the classrooms on campus.

As if having to ignore the many construction sites that are located around campus isn’t enough, now the college wants student to go to their classes and be educated when some of the classes are in serious need of renovation and filled with distractions.

The level of subpar classrooms around BC ranges from something as simple as a couple of tiles missing, paint chipping or just a faulty clock, but in others something like a projector used for lecturing or even a student’s desk can be something that needs to be replaced.

There are times when a teacher walks into a classroom and turns on the projector for a lecture but nothing happens. They fiddle around with it hoping for a quick fix but that quick fix turns into a 10-minute waste of time. Finally, the projector starts to work, but the speakers are blown out so everything is back where it started.

Instead of an education, we get a firsthand view of the college’s resources being wasted.

In other classes, the pull up desk that some of the auditoriums have don’t ever seem to stay in place. You pull your books and binder out to get ready for the start of class, then the desk suddenly gives out sending all of your supplies crashing to the ground. If that happens during class time it can be a huge distraction, especially if your desk is the one that gave out.

Or if you take a class in the Humanities Building, it has regular desks but some of the chairs don’t seem to match your desk. Suddenly you have a chair that sits you too high for the desk or leaves you wobbling all class leaving you in a search for something to stuff underneath the chair to even it out.

Then while taking notes, you look down and suddenly you’re reading the profanity that has been left on the top of the desk by previous students.

Or you turn and look at the clock to see what time it is, but the clock is off anywhere from 15 minutes to some that are hours off the actual time, but that’s if the clock in the classroom is actually working.

Just sitting in a classroom, it’s easy to notice that they are falling behind what is considered an average classroom. Electronics that should work never do, missing tiles trip any student that dares to step on them, and white boards that don’t erase and seem to save anything that is written on them.

This is a college and some of these distractions are an easy fix and something the paying college student shouldn’t have to worry about.

Like the pipes that are being replaced, it seems like the student is going to have to wait until BC is forced to update these classrooms that are stuck in the past.

Students understand the campus is extremely old and we’re not asking for the latest classrooms with the newest technology, just a classroom that doesn’t constantly distract with everything that is falling apart inside.

We are always told that we’re college students and there are no excuses for missed homework or exams, so shouldn’t the college be held to the same standard?

Students pay to be taught and educated, not distracted and annoyed.