As I pushed a huge yellow cart down the hall, it threatened to overflow from being stuffed with every possession I ever decided to cram into my dorm room. Over my huge pile of clothes, I noticed doors decorated with not only nametags, but pictures of celebrities and cute notes between friends. I passed the communal bathroom and couldn’t help but sigh because I definitely was not looking forward to going inside.
“Who’s that girl,” said one of my new floormates. I was the junior moving into a freshman dorm, Warren Towers, to escape roommate problems.
We all brave the dorms our freshman year of college, but by the end of spring semester, we’re all dying to get out and begin our new lives in suites or apartments. I lived in a suite my sophomore year, complete with my own private bathroom and as much space as I needed for my extensive shoe collection. Although I thought going back to dorm life wouldn’t be that bad, I was getting a normal roommate finally, being that junior living in Warren was not my best idea.
Here’s what you forgot about Freshman dorm life:
1. You’re trapped
When you live in a two person room with 2 beds, 2 closets, 2 dressers, 2 desks, 2 inches open in the middle of the room, and not much else, there’s really no way to escape spending time in your bedroom. You can go to the library to study, but you’re bound to crave the comfort of your bed at some point. As a junior, you won’t be best friends with the freshman on your floor, so you won’t be able to walk a few doors down for a change of scenery.
2. You don’t live here.
Freshmen hang out in each other’s rooms. A lot. Whether you’re doing your homework or getting ready for class in the morning, your roommate’s friends will randomly show up right when all you want is to be left alone. And even worse, they’ll barely acknowledge you—they’ll talk about their freshman drama while you just shake your head and wonder how you ever put up with being completely isolated from a huge group of girls sitting inches away from you before.
3. Can I get some peace and quiet?!
When there aren’t unwelcome guests inside your room, it’ll become way too evident that your neighbors definitely aren’t studying on a Tuesday night. They’re screeching at the top of their lungs until 2 am about boys and celebs and everything you don’t care to know about their lives. If you can hear full words and sentences coming through the walls and preventing you from sleeping, you will not be happy.
4. Ok, who threw up this time?
Freshman can be sloppy at parties, but what’s worse is when they come home and continue to vomit in communal spaces. Either it’s in the common room, the bathroom, or the hallway, all you know is that it’s there and you can smell it. And if it happens to be right outside of your room…don’t get me started.
5. The Who’s that Girl Syndrome
People talk and people gossip, it’s inevitable. But freshman floor gossip is just different. Everyone knows everyone and if they don’t know who you are, either you’re an outsider (probably weird), or they want to know who you are and why you’re there. That’s why when I moved onto the top floor of Warren, I heard people whispering about me basically every time I walked down the hall. Sometimes they were brave enough to approach me (gasp!), but usually they weren’t. Meanwhile, my name was on my door…did they really need to know more than that?!
Ultimately, the freshman dorm experience is one of those unavoidable rights of passage that you learn to love, but should never have to go back to. When you become an upperclassman, you take on more responsibilities that make it necessary to have your own space. You stop feeling the need to have someone with you every second of every day, and sometimes you even find yourself wanting to do work and wishing distractions will disappear. You become an independent colligate taking on your own goals and responsibilities.
Don’t worry HCBU readers; I’m now safely living in Stuvi, enjoying the apartment life, as any junior should. And yes, when I moved out, all I heard was my “floormates” whispering about what I was doing.