For most freshmen at the University, the first impression they have of college life is moving into their dorm rooms for the first time. They come to their dorms with mixed expectations and try to cram all of their belongings into one half of a 148-square foot room, often saving the other half for a roommate who is a complete stranger. From there students live out the experience of dorm life.
As the 2005-06 school year winds down, the University’s current freshmen have mixed feelings looking back on the experience.
Freshman Wade Clark, a political science major from Everett, Wash., currently lives in Moore Hall in the Bean complex. He said he has enjoyed the dorms overall, and that he and his hall mates were a very close group.
“I think the people really make the dorm,” Clark said. He called the new friends the “most valuable thing” that came from his experience in Moore this year.
Clark said he plans on living in a house at the end of this year and next year with eight other people. Six of those, he said, are people he met in his hall this year.
And if the people around you can make the experience, they can break it as well.
Ben Herold, a freshman living in Barnhart, was less positive about his experience this year.
“I really didn’t like living in Barnhart,” he said. “I really didn’t get along with most of the people on my floor. If you don’t get along with them, there’s no where else to go. You’re kind of stuck with them.”
Herold also said that the isolation of Barnhart adds to this problem because all of the other dorms besides Riley are on campus and relatively close to each other.
Several students also said it was difficult adjusting to the size of the dorms. Clark said he felt the dorms were too small, and that the facilities were “disappointing for the money we paid for them.”
A standard double in the four on-campus complexes is 148 square feet and costs $7,209 for the year with a standard meal plan. A deluxe double in Barnhart, where Herold lives, is 264 square feet and costs $8,562.
Shannon Fitzmaurice and Mackynze Snyder, both freshmen living in Dyment Hall in the Walton complex, agreed that the living space was uncomfortably small.
“You have to plan who’s
going to the door first because you have to, like, turn sideways,” Fitzmaurice said.
Because of the small space, Fitzmaurice suggested being creative with storage.
“Bring a lot of extra storage containers,” she said. “Closet organizers are the way to go.”
Snyder and Fitzmaurice both said that the construction on the Living Learning Center was also a nuisance, especially for residents like them in Dyment near the construction site.
As for the food offered to students in the residence halls, opinions were not as varied. Clark echoed the feelings of several other students when he said that the convenience and quickness of the dorm food is nice, but the quality of the food is less than desirable.
“The food here, sometimes it just gets really gross,” Snyder said.
Despite the negative aspects of dorm life, most freshmen said the experience was worth it, but that it is important to keep an open mind.
“My advice would be to live here and soak up as much as you can by meeting as many people as you can, but get out,” Clark said. “There’s a lot more to this town and this University than the dorms.”