This paper examines the study space preferences of college students in their respective university colleges. The study utilized principles of visual ethnography to collect participatory photographic data. Student participants completed three tasks, a demographic survey, participant-supplied photographs, and an exit interview. We recruited from the Colleges of Architecture and Education and Human Development 60 participants who captured their preferred study spaces in their colleges and adjacent areas through photographic evidence. Grounded theory and qualitative coding were applied to analyze and create preliminary code themes from the visual and textual data to further evaluate student study preferences. The authors discovered that there were differences, and sometimes similarities, of space availability between the colleges, patterns of semesterly inhabiting behavior and transient movement, and organic ability for collaboration.