Of Fire Drills and Independence

Are fire drills in college necessary?

Originally published on June 19, 2017

This week at one of my jobs the fire alarm went off. We evacuated the building for a half hour while it was taken care of. We were all pretty casual about it, grabbing our phones and calmly walking outside. There was an actual small fire which caused little damage, but it got me thinking: I haven’t had a fire drill since my first week in the dorms freshman year. In grade school and high school we had them at least twice a year, and we were all organized about it with designated meeting spots and a head count, and nearly every time we knew it was coming. So, approximately 15 years after my first fire drill, for once it was not a drill.

While we were waiting to go back inside, I got to thinking about sitting in a classroom during the school year and wondering what would happen if the fire alarm went off. Now, I don’t know what the rules are, if most colleges have fire drills, or not. I’m just guessing all the alarms would work and we’re all capable enough adults to figure out what was going on and make our way out of a building safely. Would we think to do a head count? Who’s in charge of that? How far away from the building should we get? It makes sense for younger students, when the administration is charged with their responsibility. But in college, how dependent are we on the administration like that?

Obviously there’s a fine line between being an independent adult and a dependent child, and the most time it’s apparent is in college. There’s a million articles about this: doing laundry and buying food, but having your parents as a lifeline if you need them. Colleges have many rules for the students who go there, many of which are for their own safety, yet the whole selling point of college is your independence and freedom to make your own decisions about your education. But if you turn the situation a little more serious, to matters like fire drills, it makes you think: do you want to be a child or an adult?

I think the best answer for questions like this is a little of both. College is a transitionary time. It’s okay to be wanted to be treated like a child, and it’s okay to be an adult. I think in serious times, I would want someone to be watching out for me and my safety, and making sure all my friends are there. I would want the administration doing a little head count and checking our names off. I would want that kind of security, even if it’s just once while I’m still there.

So maybe we don’t need fire drills for college buildings. Maybe we do. Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.