Opinion: Not even going to pretend this applies if you live in Barnhart.

———-

When I was a senior in high school, dorm living was one of the most talked-about aspects of college. Back then, all I could think about were the consequences of sharing my room with a stranger, and that was far from appealing. I dreaded going to college and dealing with the infamous shared bathroom, lack of privacy and roommate issues I had heard so much about.
As much as I was excited to come to the University of Oregon, I couldn’t imagine giving up the amenities of home I used to take for granted. That, combined with the fact that I was moving away from the home I had known for as long as I could remember, was enough to leave little Isaac trembling in his boots.
Incoming first-year student Isabella Thomas, who is from Los Angeles, has similar worries.
“I’ve never even shared a room before,” Thomas said. “Sharing a bathroom and being in a completely different place… it’s definitely nerve racking.”
Nothing can truly prepare you for dorm living. Packing nearly your whole life up and putting it into one room is not easy, especially when that room is surrounded by hundreds of other rooms of all-new people. However, I soon realized that this living situation is incredibly beneficial, for social, practical and emotional reasons.
Living on campus could not be more convenient. I’m in Global Scholars Hall, and the ease of walking downstairs to grab a meal or snack is not lost on me. On top of that, none of my classes are more than a 15-minute walk away. While cities across the country spend millions to retrofit their infrastructure for walkability, where I live is already built to support it.
The social aspect of dorm living is something I’ve loved, and I know I will never experience it again. I will never again live within a 5-10 minute walk from nearly all of my friends. It is likely that I will never again live in a place where I share my bathroom with some 30 other people, which has actually turned out not to be a bad thing. The playing field is leveled in the dorms; everyone is in the same boat, and it creates bonds.
First-year Adele Bauer, who lives in Hamilton Hall, understands that living in the dorms is unique.
“I have really liked the community my hall has built,” Bauer said. “We all say hi to each other in the bathroom and hallways.”
I’ve made some of my best friends on my floor, and many of the relationships formed are just because of our living situation. It’s an unmatched experience to share a living space with people that are all around the same age and stage of life as I am.
The community living that dorms provide also has many emotional benefits. My love of seeing people in the elevator or hallway is backed up by science. A study by ​​Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, found that people who feel lonely and without community often deal with serious health and emotional consequences.
“Social isolation and loneliness lead to a 30% increase in risk of mortality on average,” TIME reported on the study.
Dorms do more for us than we realize. And sure, my roommate and I have had some differences in opinion on how many alarms should be set in the morning (I’m a 1-2 alarm guy, personally. He’s more of a seven or eight alarm man himself), and I won’t pretend having to walk down the hall to shower is something I look forward to. But overall I’ve really enjoyed living both with him and in the dorms.
Nothing can prepare you for dorm living because nothing can prepare you for the 1 a.m. night-recap conversations in the hall after getting back from going out with friends, the impromptu study sessions with someone who happened to walk into the same study room as you, or the close friends you make just because you happened to have picked rooms on the same floor in September.
So, to my fellow dorm-dwellers nearing the end of their tenure, let’s make the end of the term count. While next year we can all look forward to our own rooms and bathrooms, try to enjoy where we are now. Enjoy the benefits, because no matter your roommate or living situation, these are your last four weeks of ever living like this.