I was looking back at my old blog posts and I found the first one I ever posted: about dorms. Now that I've officially started college, my opinions, and situation, have changed. Here's the real story about on-campus housing:
Well, I ended up not moving in with my friends, which turned out to be a good idea in hindsight, since I still havent procured a steady job yet. So I decided to live in the dorms, and in some ways, it's everything I expected. Noisy neighbors, having to work around both yours and your roommate's schedule. And, lets face it, my roommate and I don't have the most compatible personalities. To tell you the truth, I don't know how I'm going to last the rest of the semester.
But one thing can be said for dorms: convenience. I don't have to worry about any maintenance problems, I can walk to all of my classes, and I even have freshly cooked meals available every day. [Now, I'm not advocating dorm food by any means, cuz it's definitely NOT like momma made it, if you know what I mean.]
No matter how convenient, though, I'm still not sold on the idea of dorms. I think my personality just clashes with them. I would take the advice of a commenter on my last post and move in with my fiance, but he's living at the dorms at his school and has no job either to help me with rent. So the alternative looks like: working for the rest of the semester (and all summer), then getting an apartment by myself in the fall.
Good plan, I guess.
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If you have the money for the dorms, go for it. There's a lot fo be said for rolling out of bed twenty-one minutes before class starts (I got pretty good at staying in bed every last possible minute). My freshman year I also had the opportunity to tech a LOT of school theatre, which was a great experience. I didn't have to worry about gas or traffic to get to the theatres, and I didn't have to worry about security getting home.
Yeah, it has it's drawbacks. There was one time I went downstairs and left my 24-hour-rap-station neighbor a note on his door that said "Uraguay called, they want you to turn it down." I also bought a five-buck air-horn at Wal-Mart for just such situations this past semester. You find sneaky, humorous ways to assert yourself. One great thing about the dorms is that you have a built-in community... more or less. Friendships built on proximity usually don't last outside the microcosm, but you never know...
At MOU (my old university) I came to be very resentful of the housing department. The RAs were my friends, but after five semesters in teh dorms, I can safely say that everything the housing department did was motivated by money, not by the good of the students. Then again, dorm students got the short end of the stick because we made up such a small percentage of the student population.
Yet when I look back, I'm glad I got to stay in the dorms for as long as I did. I'm one of those people who was born with senioritis, but even I have to say, try to enjoy the dorms, especially the community style dorms, as long as you're there.
eh, i've always had a thing about living in close proximity with people. but its not really a money issue rather than a convenience issue. like you said, its sooo much easier to be able to sleep in and still not miss class (though i still do occasionally).
of course, at my school, the dorm kids are actually the majority, because it's such a small campus, so we don't have as many problems with our needs not being met, like you described.
Those 3 words are my sentiments about dorm life. My dorm room is smaller than the average hotel room, not to mention the obvious lack of a private bathroom. I'm crammed in this little itty bitty room with a girl that drives me insane for various reasons. I want to strangle her when she turns on the water to brush her teeth while I'm sleeping!
I'm required to live in the dorms - Yes, required. Someone somewhere decided that it's absolutly necessary for every college freshman to live with family, or a complete stranger who they will (likely) grow to hate in a manner of months. How that is benefitial to my studies I have yet to decide. I may not kill myself because of some bizzar College-Freshman-Depression, but it's only because I'm too busy plotting the demise of my roommate. Hah.
It's just another plot (requiring dorms, that is) to squeeze more money out of the already impoverished students.
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"So stuff that in your pipe and smoke it!"
Yeah, I've never understood the whole dorm requirement for freshmen, I think it is another excuse to squeeze money out of people. Like I said, I'm glad I lived in the dorms for the time I did, but when I make it back to a 4yrU, I'm going to try and find an apartment.
The list of money-grubbing tactics goes on as you live there:
1)dryers that don't dry your clothes (I absolutely hate this one!!!)
2) "housekeeping" that doesn't clean your bathrooms if you leave a bar of soap on the sink (it scares them)
3) Four words: "YEAR LONG HOUSING CONTRACTS" and the penalties that accompany them... a contract should not last longer than an academic term, period.
4) new apartment style dorms being raised to replace the dilapidated community styles
5) raising the price of parking permits to pay for apartment style dorms to replace the dilapidated community styles
6) building shoddy dorms that start sinking into the ground as soon as you build them and then need to be replaced by more spiffy apartment styles....
yeah, just one of my many soap-boxes
7) Requiring you to buy meal plans if you live in the dorms, whether you are going to use them or not
8) All those crazy fees tacked on to your tuition that you don't even know what they are, or if you use them
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"So stuff that in your pipe and smoke it!"
#'s 1, 5, 7 and 8 are my personal pet peeves. and i agree that most, if not all of those are universal.
my boyfriend is required to live in the dorms at his school. i dont get the point of it at all. im not required to, like i probably mentioned before. and i think in my first post about this i mentioned how much my boyfriend dispised his roommate. (of course this semester he managed to get a room by himself, people dropped out or something i guess) Besides the fact that the dorms at his school are incredibly GHETTO (they were built during WWII) and his school gets away with it by calling them "pieces of history."
Im still a senior in High school but I was looking into colleges and dorm prices they are outrageous. And like you mentioned theres alot of hidden fees in there that you have to include that you have no clue what they are really for. But all said and done I wish I could afford to stay in the dorms being able to walk to classes would so rock specailly in bad weather as it stands Ill be staying at home and commuting to school.