{"id":50078,"date":"2025-11-17T17:44:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T17:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/50078\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T17:44:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T17:44:19","slug":"college-students-in-the-city-of-third-spaces-the-crows-nest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/50078\/","title":{"rendered":"College students in \u2018the city of third spaces\u2019\u00a0 \u2013 The Crow’s Nest"},"content":{"rendered":"

The President Barack Obama Main Library<\/a> is one of many third spaces where the people of St. Petersburg can go to relax, learn, or socialize.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo by Makenna Wozniak | The Crow\u2019s Nest\u00a0<\/p>\n

By Julia Birdsall <\/p>\n

The first time Elise Prophete, the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus\u2019 student governor and a junior studying political science and sustainability studies, went to the library it blew her mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been a book person,\u201d Prophete told The Crow\u2019s Nest. \u201cBut not only just getting to see all the books I wanted, but even the computers there and the games, getting to be around these random kids that I\u2019ve never seen before. The ability to just make friends organically that way was always so interesting to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Estella Najera, a senior sustainability major and geographic information systems minor, used to spend quality time with her family at the library.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family and I would go [to the library] a lot and I would just hang out there for hours and read whatever they had to offer,\u201d Najera said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In this way, third spaces have benefitted students by giving them somewhere to learn, express themselves and make connections. Those spaces can continue to support them as they grow up.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Third spaces are \u201csomewhere where you just get to be in community with others,\u201d Prophete said. She went on to explain that they\u2019re places where one can do work, catch up with people or just lounge about for free.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Najera agreed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA third space is just somewhere that I enjoy going to that\u2019s away from school or my house,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel like I can consider the gym a third space because I don\u2019t really have to pay for that, and it\u2019s just like a place I go. Or the lap pool; I feel like I consider it a third space. Even on my bike, I think I would consider that a third space because it\u2019s a place that I can go to relax.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The term third space, or third place as they\u2019re also referred to, was first used by the sociologist Ray Oldenburg in 1989.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He claimed that Americans lack community and \u201care not a contented people\u201d on account of this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His solution: a space outside the realm of home and work, where one could form social connections.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201c\u2026daily life, in order to be relaxed and fulfilling, must find its balance in three realms of experience. One is domestic, a second is gainful or productive, and the third is inclusively sociable, offering both the basis of community and the celebration of it,\u201d Oldenburg wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By engaging in these spaces, Oldenburg claimed, people will achieve personal growth and satisfaction, which will ultimately benefit their community and society as a whole by improving relationships and social interactions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an Instagram survey, one student told The Crow\u2019s Nest that third spaces are \u201cneeded more than ever on campus.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

These spaces are especially beneficial for college students, who may be new to the city that they are living in and looking for connection or overwhelmed by the obligations of school and work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving nothing expected of us in a place that we choose to go to, it gives us that personhood back when we feel like little producers,\u201d Prophete said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Najera and Prophete both felt that St. Petersburg has accessible third spaces for people to enjoy \u2014 including the Nelson Poynter Memorial Library, the harborside lawn, the Campus Grind, the university student center and the Judy Genshaft Student Life Center \u2014 but have noticed that this is not the case in other places.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Najera noted that her hometown implements age-based curfews might hinder some young people from engaging with third spaces and Prophete stated that she noticed a growing number of cafes are having to ban people from bringing their laptops inside because of the number of people who do their virtual work inside.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A possible reason that St. Petersburg\u2019s third spaces are more accessible than other places may be because of the variety of spaces offered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are parks, like Vinoy Park<\/a>, cafes, like Black Crow Coffee<\/a>, bookstores, like The Book Lounge<\/a> or Tombolo Books<\/a>, and community spaces, like those Queer Expression<\/a> provides.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Student respondents to the Instagram survey, as well as Prophete and Najera stated that they want to see third spaces grow and receive more resources in the future so that \u201cthe city of third spaces,\u201d as Prophete referred to St. Petersburg, can flourish.\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n\t\t\t\t Post Views: 95 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\"More<\/a>
Written by: Julia Birdsall<\/a> on November 17, 2025.
Last revised by: Alisha Durosier<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The President Barack Obama Main Library is one of many third spaces where the people of St. Petersburg…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-50078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}