Coming to the Fresh Food Company cafeteria at 8:45 p.m. is definitely nobody’s first choice. Either you are coming from your late-evening recitation or your communication class.
Students tap their student ID, grab what they can and eat quickly, aware of the closing time looming overhead. The lines move faster than usual. Not just because it is closing at 9 p.m., but also because there is nothing much left to eat. Chairs scrape louder. Conversations grow shorter. No one really settles in.
Brianna Teer, a junior meteorology major, said dining hall hours have shaped when and how students eat, especially during late evenings. “I haven’t been to Fresh since my freshman year, but those people kicked you out at night,” Teer said. “If you walked in at 8:45… they’re like, ‘get in, get out.’ You can’t sit down to eat.”
Early closing of the cafeteria is only one of the many instances at Mississippi State University where building hours run students’ lives rather than weave within them.
Hayden Todd, a junior elementary education major, said he and his roommate had been asked to leave Sanderson shortly before closing time, which was 7 p.m. on a Friday, reinforcing how early cutoffs shape students’ routines.
Individually, these moments feel small. Together, they start to form a schedule that students learn without ever being told. A closed POD, an early gym closure, a missed meal option – they form a pattern: campus closes, and students adjust.
Todd also added, “If I want Newk’s at 6 p.m., I can’t get it here. I have to drive all the way down [Highway] 12.”
The limitation becomes more noticeable in academic spaces. Many students rely on the library as a study space, especially when their own academic buildings lack dedicated workspaces. When shared spaces close early, the impact extends beyond inconvenience.
Colby Sheehan, a junior meteorology major, said limited library hours, especially at night, can make it harder for students to find a consistent study space.
At a university where group work and late nights are part of the academic culture, limited hours restrict students’ efficiency. Group study, by design, requires conversation, but when those groups are pushed into hushed, shared environments, collaboration becomes something more restrained.
Matthew Miller, a junior meteorology major, said, “When it’s quiet, it feels weird to talk.” The fear of breaking an unspoken rule of silence in the shared space of late-night teamwork lingers.
The library, then, becomes less of a backup and more of the default setting. It is where students go when everything else closes, even if “going to the library” means navigating a mix of 24/7 access areas, quiet zones and group spaces that were not necessarily designed to overlap at midnight.
Despite these limitations, students can create different memories.
Sheehan recalled a campus event during his freshman year that temporarily transformed a normally structured space into a more social, open environment.
“I know Sanderson, my freshman year, they used to do ‘Fitzel Fridays,’ where they’d open from like 9 to 11 if you just played soccer,” Sheehan said. “That was a lot of fun.”
It is a small example, but one that reflects a larger idea about flexibility in campus spaces.
“If you are going to close early,” Sheehan added, “I feel like doing stuff like that encourages students to get out.”
In other words, if the hours can not change, the experience still can. Occasionally, students find ways to work within the system, sometimes creatively.
Though Sheehan wishes for longer hours for Perry, mostly due to the desserts the food hall serves, which he describes as ‘so good, oh, so good!”
Sheehan said, “I figured out how to make milkshakes out of the MSU milk and ice cream.”
Ultimately, the conversation around building hours is less about frustration and more about adaptation. Students adjust to schedules, plan around closing times and shift where they study depending on what is available.
While campus facilities balance staffing, safety and maintenance needs, students continue navigating those limits in real time. Sometimes that means relocating within the library, sometimes exercising outdoors or sometimes finding a hidden quiet corner that you will gatekeep until your senior year.
