Routines are settling into place with the start of a new semester, and there seems to be one study habit shared among Obies: music. Do you listen to ambient music to create a sense of calm? Or can you work with heavy metal at full volume in your headphones? As classes are beginning to get more serious and Mudd Library becomes more populated, Oberlin students answer the question: What music are you listening to?

College second-year Jyothi Rao:

I’m listening to Fleetwood Mac. I’m listening to Rumours, just that album top to bottom. I honestly just pick what I’m listening to based on diversity because I’ll get bored of the same study beats. Unless I’m doing math, in which case I will do the ambient sound thing.

College second-year Bram 

Belonsky-Stern:

The Wind of Things by M. Sage. I’ve been on an ambient grind lately. Partially because it is good to study to, but once you start doing that, you start hearing other things when you’re listening to it and all of a sudden I found myself making ambient music. Kind of a rabbit hole.

College third-year Rebecca Imthurn:

I’m listening to “The Fire Dancer” by Peter Gundry. I just needed something to help me focus on my reading.

College second-year Shaye Frenkel:

I’m listening to Lion of Judas by Elysia. I’m just going through my music. And it’s an older album from 2009. And I was like, “oh,” so I listened to it today.

College third-year Dulce Rincón:

I’m currently listening to “For the Rest of My Life” by Out of Sights because I’m listening to this Chicano soul playlist on Spotify.

College fourth-year Franklin Sanchez-Colburn:

I’m currently listening to the MCR-T set from the Earth Klub in Berlin on July 13, 2021. Because I’m doing my statistics homework, and I like it, and it’s nice to work to.

College fourth-year Michael Varlotta:

I’m listening to eleven hours of pink noise. I put this on whenever I am in Mudd studying and doing homework because it helps me concentrate.

College fourth-year Audrey Weber:

I am listening to brown noise on YouTube because I have so much reading to do and I need to not be distracted.

College fourth-year Laura Weinstein:

I was not listening to anything, but I just did not want to hear people talking. But before that I was listening to Frou Frou, and I’ve been really into “Let Go” recently. I don’t know if it’s something that I really liked to listen to just for studying. It’s more so something I like to listen to when I’m walking around campus or driving my car. It’s not really like a studying song.

Based on the answers above, one thing is clear: no one sound defines the student body, as Obies listen to everything from brown or pink noise to underground German DJ sets while studying.