Rutgers Move-in For Students Began Friday at New Residence Hall

While the rest of New Jersey most likely spent its Friday preparing for what is estimated to be quite a wet weekend, the skies were sunny and everyone was smiling at the new B.E.S.T. Residence Hall on Busch Campus, as 500 students, accompanied by parents and a team of student move-in assistants, situated themselves into the new rooms.

Just four days after the official ribbon cutting for the $57-million Busch Engineering, Science and Technology Building, students flooded the campus grounds to see it, complete with wi-fi in every room, student lounges on all four floors in all three buildings, recreational lounges with ping-pong and pool tables complete with flat screen TV’s.

Oh, and each of the suites comes with its own microwave and mini-fridge.

The building, whose construction began in the Spring of 2010, is also highly energy-efficient, earning a silver rating by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards, and is chocked full of brand new technology, said University spokesman Steve Manas.

The students have access to SMART boards, information boards, a study space modeled after the New York City [Public] Library and sensors that lock and unlock doors and turn lights on and off said Residence Life coordinator Jessica Fred.

“It’s a very smart building,” Fred said, noting the temperature systems in every room also utilize sensors to switch to a more efficient room temperature default when a person leaves the room.

Though the building is open to first-year students and upper classmen from the School of Arts and Sciences, the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy and the Rutgers School of Engineering, not everyone can live here, she said.

“Every student who lives here has to have a clean disciplinary record,” she said. “And they had to write an essay. We probably had way over 500 applicants and even after the application process people [wanted] to get in, but after a while we had to cut it.”

Michael Simio, a School of Engineering sophomore, said that he is most excited for the brand new computer lab which is open to all University students.

The move-in crew arrived at the building at 6 a.m. and prepared to help students for the 9 a.m. move-in, said move-in crew member Daniel Nunez.

“Honestly, it worked out a lot smoother than I thought,” said Nunez, a School of Arts and Sciences junior. “With the traffic and all the cars coming, there are a lot of move-in crew members and community assistants helping with everything.”

Although B.E.S.T. Hall appears to be a very technological step forward for the University, Manas did not know if any of the other residence halls on the other campuses were going to be receiving any kind of comparable technological upgrades.

“I don’t know the situation in all the other residence halls, but it stands to reason that the newer buildings may contain more of these features,” Manas said. “This is the first new dorm since ’94 when they built University Center on Easton Avenue.”

Campus-wide move-ins will continue Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. and will conclude at 3 p.m. Those students who could not move in on Saturday will have an opportunity Monday from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m., following Hurricane Irene’s departure from the area.