On the surface, dorm life doesn’t seem that tempting. Even if you live in a single dorm, you still have to share a small space with others with minimum privacy, especially in the bathroom. There’s the occasional (or not so occasional) loud neighbor, the one who cleans their dishes in the bathroom sink, the one who smells up the entire floor with their home-cooked meal and the list goes on. However, living in the UNC dorms has been one of the best experiences I’ve had since coming to college. I’ve met great people and learned to work with minimum resources, and while I tend to complain about the cramped circumstances, I’ve learned to appreciate the pros of living in a dorm.
Best Way to Meet New People
In my experience, living in a dorm has been the easiest way to meet new people. When I first came to UNC, I had zero connections. I latched on to my roommate for about a week, who introduced me to her different friend groups. It gave me a good foundation of connections for the first few weeks of school, before I started making my own friends through classes.
Your RA can also come to be a close friend or a good resource to find new people in the dorm. Especially during my first year, I made an effort to go to community programs that were held around my dorm so I could get to know the people with whom I was living. I ended up finding plenty of great people who were my neighbors and ended up getting super close with my RA, who is still a good friend.
Location
In short, living in a dorm is extremely convenient. Since you’re on campus constantly, you can easily get involved with different clubs and organizations that maybe wouldn’t be an option otherwise. You also have constant access to food and libraries. Most importantly, if you’re bored late at night, you can go to the Pit and watch people rap battle or ride their unicycles. I know many people who have noted that while living off campus is great, they wished they were closer to campus for those small luxuries.
Minimum Household Chores
One of the best perks about living in a dorm is the lack of constant household chores. While doing laundry can be a pain, especially if you have to travel to a different building in order to do it, there are no cleaning responsibilities outside of your room (with the exception of suite-style and Rams Village dorms).
With that said, the cleaning crew does an amazing job taking care of the bathrooms and kitchens. I always encourage students to let the cleaning crew know that they’re appreciated. They deserve vacation after vacation for cleaning up after us—I’m pointing at the neighbor that leaves food in the sink from washing dishes.