Hidden gems that are worth walking across campus for

Students spend a lot of time on campus, and sometimes they have a few minutes to kill. For the students who only have a moment to spare, or those who just like to hang out, there are spots on campus every student should hit up before they graduate.

Augmentation Sandbox

This sandbox, located in the campus library at North Dakota State, allows students to build or destroy mountains and see the geographical shifts in real time.

The sandbox functions like a topographical map; the higher the peak, the redder in color the sand becomes.

Students can create rivers and valleys, hills and mountains and see their creation as a topographical map in real time, and users report it looks pretty too.

The sandbox was originally given to the geology department to help students study maps, but the classroom that uses them only has three stations, and there are four sandboxes. They generously allowed the fourth to be used by the larger NDSU community.

Babbling Brook and amphitheater

Just outside the South Engineering building lies a small, man-made river, complete with a bridge and a small amphitheater for students to hang out, do homework or spontaneously perform Shakespearean soliloquies.

The scenic area has been known to be used for first dates, basking in the rare sunshine the campus receives and having deep late-night conversations among friends.

Everybody who visits the campus also seems to snap a picture of this area before they leave.

A tunnel

The small skyway tunnel that connects the second floor of Morrill Hall and the second floor of Hultz Hall has some of the best lighting on campus.

Perhaps it’s just the tint of the old windows, or how it slants at a slightly more severe angle than other tunnels on campus, but it provides good lighting, especially for photographs.

This tunnel also happens to be used pretty infrequently, so the odds of getting a good, uninterrupted selfie is pretty high.

Entomology department

Just outside the doors of the entomology department, located in Hultz Hall, lies a panel of windows with displays ranging from bug family photos to themed crossword puzzles.

Walk a little further in either direction of these windows, and students can find more word games or a comical display of bugs (or not-bugs) displayed in the common area.

Peek just inside the doors of the department offices and there are (dead) bugs in jars presented in a chandelier-like form, dangling beneath a light.

Stevens Hall

For students who feel like taking a stroll, and have a decent chunk of time to kill, Stevens Hall offers a wide display of various creatures, both dead and live.

The 3-story building features about every fossil students could think of and live animals like snakes, lizards and turtles.

While the building is used for science classes, all NDSU students are permitted to poke around, so long as they’re respectful of the items inside, especially the live creatures.