For some MSU students, learning is about study-time, lectures and textbooks.
But for Brenda Sternquist, it's all about the classroom.
"Classrooms are really, really important to me," the merchandising management professor said. "If you're in a crummy classroom, your attention starts to wander, and you start getting these annoyances."
Sternquist, who has taught at MSU for more than 20 years, said she has experienced her share of both good and bad classrooms at MSU.
Classrooms with padded chairs, such as the International Center library are extremely beneficial to students, Sternquist said.
"It accommodates big classes, but it seems pretty intimate," she said.
Sternquist said there are several factors a good classroom must have, such as moveable chairs for group work, windows to help people keep a grasp on the time, space to walk around while lecturing and carpet.
"It makes it quieter, so if somebody drops something, people don't hear the commotion," she said.
But there are rooms that don't meet Sternquist's standards - including some in Anthony and Hubbard halls, she said.
"Terrible rooms," she said. "They had very little dividing between the classrooms so you can hear everything that's going on in the other classrooms."
Not only that, but Sternquist said if professors and students are put in poor classrooms, it may hinder student interest in learning.
"You put both of us in a crummy classroom and you feel less important," she said. "It has a huge effect on how they learn."
Scott Hernandez, a chiropractor at Infinity Chiropractic Center, 4500 S. Hagadorn Road, said the desks and chairs students are sitting in could also affect their ability to learn.
"Our bodies were actually designed to stand," he said. "When we sit nine to 10 hours a day, we have no choice."
Students need to keep their posture aligned, and to maintain the natural curve of their back, Hernandez said.
"Your knees should be 90 degrees between your legs and your shins," he said. "And when you sit, your hips and your stomach should be at 90 degrees."
Desks in larger lecture halls that are fixed might cause back problems in students since every student is shaped differently, he said.
"The bottom of his chest line should be comfortably at the desk," he said, adding students should be seated in "anything that's going to keep them from slumping in the chair."
Another way to promote higher student attentiveness, Hernandez said, is to have the class stand up every 15 minutes.
"Blood flow needs to circulate to the head," he said.
Light is the biggest concern to aid students' learning, said Norman Miller, a professor of psychiatry and medicine.
"Too bright of a light can be distracting, and too little light can be hard to see and can also lull people into sleep," he said, adding a room without windows in a closed setting "can be kind of numbing and it can be kind of mesmerizing.
"You don't get the natural kinds of background stimuli that help you stay focused, that help you stay grounded."
