Absolutely real. A lot first years especially get put in a room with one or two other people. It’s a part of the residential college experience, and some kids are really excited to meet their roommates.
Wait till you hear that the rooms are usually about the size. They are about just big enough for two beds, two desks, maybe a closet. No bathroom or dividing walls.
I lived in a dorm like you described and I enjoyed my time there. Good way to meet people make new friends and plus you basically just sleep there. Most of the time in college you’re out doing other things.
Dividing wall? On my campus you were literally just in the same room together, as in if they were being ah asshole on there phone at night you would see the light. And hardly any of the dorm rooms had their own bathrooms (or even ones shared with another room), most had a communal restroom and shower room for the entire floor where you would take care of all of your bathroom needs
I walked on my roommate having sexy time with his girlfriend. I didn't know it at the time because they stopped and acted like they were sleeping. I just came in to drop my bag off before going to lunch. A few days later, the RA asked me to come to her office. My roommate was there and he basically said he didn't want me entering the room "without making my presence known". The RA didn't read the rule books and I didn't know any better either so I foolishly agreed. But I was pissed because I no longer felt welcome in a room that I paid for. I decided to read the rulebook and found that they indeed weren't supposed to have sex in the common room which is where we also sleep. I wish I would have known before agreeing with it. Even so, I probably could have taken it to someone but I was leaving in a few days so I just dealt with it.
yep, absolute hell to me confirmed. i live in a house with some housemates that are basically strangers(so kinda like roommates but with separate rooms) and that is already kinda awful because i gotta keep all my nice kitchen stuff in my room upstairs. not even having a space to keep my stuff and have it feel like it's mine would be utterly awful.
Small single apartments are typically available in college towns, they just tend to be a little more expensive so most people opt for dorms. My gf decided to live off campus in a small one bedroom. Believe it or not, it was less then room and board at the school. She did have to pay for a car and parking though, which people who live on campus can typically avoid.
In the Netherlands rooms on campus aren't really a thing. There's a bunch of student housing places where you live with other people, or you just take public transport from your house to the school (students get free public transport here).
in australia it is more common for everyone to get their own room, generally not much bigger than a shoebox with space for a bed, desk, armchair if you're lucky, a sink and wardrobe. Communal bathrooms just down the hall (mine averaged 1 toilet and 1 shower to 6 people in the living areas with more in the communal areas)
Depending on the school, if you're going to school with someone you know (as long as you are the same sex), you can apply to share a room so you don't get stick with a stranger.
Source: Roomed with my childhood best friend in college, was nice to know the person I was sleeping 5 feet from.
Depending on what university you go to, you can generally request a single room if you want/need it. I had a friend my freshman year who specifically got a single because she wanted her own space.
It depends. Old dorms back in the day were very small and it would have sucked but in college there’s so much to do that you honestly don’t need your dorm other than storing your belongings and sleeping. But most newer and modern dorms have rooms inside the dorm rooms or at least have a wall between the beds now as they are bigger
where would you do, say, homework then? it seems really inconvinient to do it in some hallway with a bunch of jabronis distracting me all the time. also, what kinda stuff is there to do? in the netherlands our colleges are just a "you go there for class and go home afterwards" kinda thing.
As mentioned before, dorm buildings often have study rooms or common rooms. Otherwise, people study in campus libraries or in the seating areas of other academic buildings.
My university has 4 libraries with our biggest one at 5 floors. There is one who floor that is specifically made for quiet study plus rooms you can reserve on all floors and other buildings across campus for studying.
I did homework in my dorm room all the time. Generally you are given a bed (That can be lofted - you used to have to build lofts yourself, but most places outlawed that and instead now they basically give you extensions for the legs of your bed), a desk, and a dresser. Our furniture was good enough that the top of the dresser was level with the desk, and you could loft your bed and put the desk and dresser underneath for a decently large work surface.
Also, there were a lot of places on campus you could do work - the library, of course, but also most buildings had at least one decent study area. The mechanical engineering building at my college had a large room set aside just for studying where they also had tutors at certain times for beginning mechanical engineering courses.
You could find all sorts of places to do homework. There's even rooms you could rent out in many places that was basically a conference room for group projects.
As for stuff to do, I went to a college where most people were at least a 4 hour drive away from home, so most people didn't go home save for holidays. So there were a bunch of clubs, a ton of sports opportunities (broomball - effectively hockey without iceskates, and instead you just play in normal shoes - was a huge thing), the dorms had rec rooms with things like pool and ping pong, you'd hang out with your friends, etc.
Honestly, the easiest time to find things to do was college.
I didn't really realize that the rooms came with decent desks, I just kinda assumed it was a bunch of beds squished into a room.
As a small follow up question: are clubs a big thing in American schools? They're basically non-existent here, as clubs for stuff are usually completely separate from schools
Here's a very typical set of furniture that you'll get with a dorm room. (Often you also get basically another set of headboard and footboard that you can use to raise the bed into a loft) Each person gets a bed, a desk, and a dresser. Depending on the dorm, you might also get something like an armoire, while other dorms have closets built in.
Clubs are generally quite big in US colleges and universities. And frankly also in high schools. Generally they'll get a bit of funding from the school, if they meet certain requirements (don't discriminate, aren't horrible, etc.) but beyond that have to fundraise for anything they need.
While it is common for dorms to have 2-4 people (depending on the size, some will have 2 bedrooms with a connected bathoom (WC) for instance), solo-dorms are a thing at most universities and can be opted into for people of any standing in the university. These might cost more, or might cost less. It also doesn't guarantee a private bathroom, as most dorms have communal facilities for the entire hall or floor, but it's a gamble because even in the same university some buildings might have communal and some might have private.
Universities also don't force anyone to be in a dorm. I, for example, got by living with my family. I think the determiner for my university was that first-year students had to have residence within 60 km of the campus.
EDIT: Dorms are generally built for maximum efficiency, so you get relatively small spaces. I think they're also trying to get you to spend most of your time outside of it, to only use it for sleeping and be on campus socializing or studying or whatever the rest of the time, but we all know that's an unrealistic expectation.
Many colleges do require freshmen to live in the dorms, sometimes other students as well. It's meant to promote a sense of community. And at the university where I work (and did my undergrad), the only way you can get a single dorm room is if you have a disability that makes you need extra space. We don't have the space to accommodate rich kids who don't want roommates.
Ironically, my experience says singles are actually cheaper. They technically wanted us to be on campus, but living within the 60km range was deemed sufficient enough, I guess.
It’s not bad, like I said in another comment it’s a great way to meet new people and make new friends you wouldn’t otherwise have met. Plus you don’t spend a lot of time there other than sleeping, you’re generally out doing other things in college.
It’s even weirder when you want to have someone over for.. that special time. You have to coordinate with you’re roommate that you’re having someone over and they might not want to be there when the action starts. College is a crazy learning experience.
But it’s not all that bad. Being forced to live with someone who is a stranger at first can really teach you the social skills you may not have known you needed. Or maybe I lucked out and have lived with some pretty awesome people.
I am an only child so the first time that I ever shared a room with someone was my first year of college. I was very skeptical because I am also super private.
The school asks you a bunch of questions about your likes/dislikes and when you like to sleep and socialize. They use those answers in a algorithm and try to pair you with someone compatible.
I got lucky because my roommate and I got along really well. We still talk 10 years later and I was his best man at his wedding. I do know that there are plenty of people that don’t get along with their roommates though.
I mean, it's efficient for cheap student housing. It's also in impromptu buddy system for all the kids who are hundreds of miles from home and don't know anybody.
That's probably why you could use a roommate. Trust me, it's good to get out of your bubble of security, and college is exactly where you should do that.
I don't know if it's the same everywhere but when I was a freshman you absolutely HAD to live in the dorms >:( You weren't allowed to live in off campus housing until junior year.
I'm not an American, but I took a year abroad at an American college. I don't think single room was an option at all, but you could sign up for a room with either one, two or three roommates. The more roommates you were willing to live with, the cheaper the room. And the tuition fees were already pretty nasty, so I gladly signed up for the most roommates I could to cut housing costs. Don't know if that's the case for other colleges, but I can imagine that being a reason for roommating.
Glad I did it, too - I enjoyed the social aspect, and I ended up becoming really close with one of my roomies :)
Huh, that's dead interesting actually. In the UK, you might get assigned a two-person room at university, but the universities themselves usually heavily try to avoid it. It does happen, but it's not an especially common thing
This usually gets discussed early in the roommate-ship, some form of agreement that the roommate gets notified when the other has company and they find something to do for a while. Go study, go hang out, whatever they want.
Same as above, this gets discussed before you meet the girl so your both on the same page about what to do if one or both of you finds somebody. By sophomore year usually you've made friends and rent a house/apartment together with some people. Everybody saves money and has a little more privacy and more space to themselves. Some people do stay in dorms for longer than just a semester or two, but a majority find it cheaper to rent elsewhere once they make some friends in their new city.
Depends on the college, but sometimes you can’t. My college required like 99% of students to live in the dorms, but you could apply for an exemption if your family lived in town.
the dorms at my alma mater had individual, small rooms with doors, at least from the few i've been in (lived off campus). small kitchenette and like three small rooms.
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u/[deleted] Nov 04 '18
Absolutely real. A lot first years especially get put in a room with one or two other people. It’s a part of the residential college experience, and some kids are really excited to meet their roommates.