To: Ken Iher, VP of Operations and Chief Information Officer
From: Cielo Raymundo, Undergraduate Student
Subject: Sleeping Pods on the City College Campus
Date: September 16th, 2025

The Problem

City College does a great job in providing a great selection of lecture times for students to choose from to create their schedules each semester. Lectures at City College start as early as 8am and go on until the evening.

Unfortunately for a lot of students even with this wide selection of lecture times they end up with schedules that have big gaps. These gaps are big enough that students are often left with nothing to do while they wait for their next lecture to begin.

Although students take advantage of these gaps to get ahead of their schoolwork or focus on other responsibilities, some still end up with time on their hands. Students also take advantage of the activities and resources that are available around campus to fill their time, but sometimes after a lecture all students want to do is rest.

City College offers space across the campus for students to study, unwind and socialize. Currently students use some of these spaces, like the library or student center to take naps and rest in between lectures. But these places can often be crowded, noisy, uncomfortable and just not the right atmosphere a student needs to truly rest.

Since City College’s campus is public, a lot of different people who aren’t part of the City College community have access to the campus. Making it unsafe and not an option for students and staff to take a nap outside.

You might think “Why can’t they just go home then?”. As a commuter college, most City College students use the MTA transit system to get to and from the campus. In most cases it’s not possible for them to go home take a break and make it back on time for their next lecture, forcing them to remain on campus.

The Solution

Being tired is a natural human reaction, and resting is a natural response. Students should be able to rest and feel safe doing so on their campus.

A potential solution to this problem is repurposing unused classrooms across the different buildings on campus and turning them into sleeping pod locations.

During a student’s schedule gap, they will have the ability to reserve sleeping pods in time intervals.

By providing reservable sleeping pods to students, not only will the college be providing safe quiet places for students to nap. But they will also be providing all the benefits that come from napping, some of which include but aren’t limited to:

• Alertness increase
• Increase in memory and problem-solving abilities
• Stress reduction
• Mood enhancement

Overall, the benefits for having reservable sleeping pods across campus are good reason to why we should install them.

To implement this solution, it will take time and effort. We would first have to look for spaces that are currently not being used and can be repurposed. We will also have to contact a provider that sell and install these sleeping pods in said locations. The provider will then need to give us an estimate on what the total will be for purchasing and installing them and estimate on how much time will it take to do all of this.

A provider that is available is Capsule Pods by Alibaba, the price for sleeping pods range from $565-$983 depending on if we want single or double pods. They are able to provide a sample for a fee before making the purchase. Installation is advertised as “easy to install”. It would be a great idea to get a quote from them or get a sample, to see if they are the best provider available. More information is available on their website: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Modern-Capsule-Pod-Bed-Box-Storage_1600358050034.html

Resolving this issue by installing sleeping pods around the campus will help students not burn out and will help them continue stay motivated while enrolled at this school. Looking forward to hearing back about the next steps to making City College a better place for all students.