Campus Under Construction

NEOMED is currently in the process of completing a $130 million expansion in, including a new research and education facility as well as the school’s first-ever on-campus student apartments. 

Ground breaking for the first of three phases of planned expansion took place in July and is expected to be completed by August 2013. All I can say is with the campus under construction, within seconds of eyeing campus I wonder if a bomb exploded or a new phase of construction has started?!?!?!?! Parking has gone from your simple “finding a spot at the public library on a Friday night” to “stalking people leaving Best Buy at 2AM on Black Friday”.  It really stinks!  I have to leave the house 10 minutes earlier in hopes to snag a spot or park in the “off-campus” lot with the option to catch the snazzy, new bus the school is providing since they’ve had to resort to an “off-campus” lot (which is expected when you demolish 70% of the parking available…DUH!). This expansion can’t be done soon enough with the horrible parking, lovely construction beeps/clashes to accompany lectures, mud-slickened EVERYTHING (seriously feels like a pig-pen), and surprise barriers blocking what used to be entrances/exits!  

Ground breaking - July 24th

Leaving our Mark on NEOMED by signing the Beam!! 

AND so it Begins……

Beep…Beep…Beep…

These are the doors that I used to walk in everyday.  And if you can spot the large mud-puddle through the right-side door…That’s where I used to park…Uhmffffff!

Front View - Oh yes folks, that mud took the place of 2 parking lots, at least 8 trees, and a good amount of grass.  Now the only purpose it serves is a field for Mud-Football (since medical & pharmacy students never have time to sleep, let alone slide around in mud). Honestly, I haven’t met one guy at NEOMED who played or even pretends to have played football (when in reality they were the water boy). Bet ya didn’t see that one coming! ;)

The snazzy, new Metro. Such a waste of $$$!  The off-campus parking lot is seriously 1.3 blocks from the school’s doors.  WALK PEOPLE!  I’m flabbergasted that a medical school is promoting laziness rather than an active lifestyle (seriously…its a shorter walk than I make to get the mail, although I’ll admit the snow does add a deterrent I never experienced in Texas! At UT it would take me at least 10-15 minutes to trek from one side of those 40 acres to the other between classes and I loved every second!   

This is all that is left of what previously was the main entrance to the campus. :(