when you went to college, did you live in the dorms?

[vash]

got to talking. it may have been the funnest 2 years of my life. food sucked, bathroom sanitation was suspect, loud, etc. but damn entertaining. i dont understand kids that immediately want their own apartment. my co-worker is in this debate with his daughter right now. he thinks she should do the dorm living..she wants to live with her high school friend, and share a 2 bedroom.

i vote dorm.

[porsche4life]

Depends on the school... Some of the bigger universities require you to the first year....


Obviously mine doesn't. I opted for an apartment my first year b/c there aren't a ton of rooms and they are uber cramped and not very nice. Had I gone to one of the larger universities(OState) I would have. They have decent dorms. As it is my apartment with all utilities is about 315 a month... Bout the same as the going dorm rate.

[Tishabet]

I lived in the dorms all 4 years, but there were mitigating factors:
-School required on-campus living for all but seniors
-School was in the middle of nowhere... the action was on campus

I think it really depends on the school and situation, but I have never regretted living in the dorms... my college had several converted frat houses and farm houses that it owned as dorm space, so as you got more senior in the housing lottery some pretty cool living situations opened up.

[cwiert]

i agree. college would not have been the same if i didn' t live in the dorms. some of the best years of my life.

[flatbutt]

Kutztown required my daughter to do freshman year in the dorm. Then I got her an apartmnt on campus.

I couldn't get my son OUT of Rutgers dorms with C4. He loved it!

[legion]

Mine required it for the first two years. I did it for three.

Yes, it was entertaining. It also allowed me to meet a lot of people. I had a huge network of friends by the time I moved into an apartment. Had I moved straight into an apartment (as a lot of transfers from community colleges did), I would have been miserable and alone.

Some of my antics...

Getting caught dumping a lot of beer bottles down the trash chute. I convinced my RA they were for an art project.

Going to a kegger on the 11th floor. It took most of the semester for the staff to figure out why the same heavy couch was moved in and out of the dorm every weekend multiple times...

Pledging the floor outside the elevators...

Penny locking people in their rooms. If you really didn't like a person, the simple phone system would not allow their phone to dial out or recieve calls until both lines had hung up. You'd simply call the person after penny locking them and leave your phone off the hook. All they could do was shout for help...

Dropping fire crackers out of the 16th floor window. Missing the window and setting a friend's bed on fire.

Getting busted for a "noxious odor". Calling a friend down the hall and have him stand outside as we threw everything inciminating out the 7th floor window for him to catch. Refusing to open the door for 3 hours until dorm staff decided to give up and leave...

[Bill Douglas]

First year I was living nearby and it was a very quiet boring (lonely) year. The next year I was in a dorm and got to know a lot of people AND got good grades.

My neice is going to university next year and I've talked her, and her mom into letting her, live in a dorm. Good life experiances and living will be so relatively civilised from that year on.

[gprsh924]

Lived in the dorms for two years (school required it for freshman and has since made it a two year requirement). Great times in the dorms, but I much prefer living in my apartment.

I will always look back fondly on dropping water balloons on people as they were swiping their cards to get in and out of the building.

[peppy]

Yes I lived in the dorms, I liked it.

[masraum]

I lived in the dorms for 3 years, I really enjoyed it. I lived with total strangers the first 2 years, the third year was mostly repeats from the first 2 years.

My stepdaughter lived in the dorms with her high school buddy. That was a disaster. Her HS buddy ended up being boy crazy and hanging out with a bunch of slackers that were either on academic probation, thrown out for slacking when they were on AP or just quitting. She hated it and moved home and went to a different school. Her friend ended up getting kicked out for crappy grades and then got knocked up by a loser boy friend. Fortunately my stepdaughter finished with a BA in Biology. She spent part of a year out in the real world and has now gone back to school to be a Physician's Asst. so she can get a better job.

She's turned out great, but I'm still disappointed that the initial dorm experience wasn't a good one.

[billwagnon]

My dorm was full of loudmouth jerks. Guys next door had a cat which they would throw against the wall for fun (or maybe they just liked pretending).

Got tired of drunks, superglue in the locks, all the BS that the partiers liked. I don't think any of them lasted more than a year or so.

Another dorm different school I had a job at 6 a.m. Sunday a.m. but the noise didn't stop until well after midnight Saturday night. And that was the Catholic 'good kid' dorm.

Later I had a room in a house full of cockaroaches but it was a lot more civilized than a dorm.

My older brother liked the dorms. Maybe it depends which one you get. I hated being required to live in the dorms.

[Pazuzu]

2 years, one was with a high school friend, second was after learning that you NEVER live with friends in the dorms.
I also never had a car on campus, never wanted one either. I can't imagine being in college, and having to deal with a car and expensive parking and drunk driving and all of that.

[legion]

I lived with my best friend from high school. We knew the stories. We thought we were different. We lasted two months as room mates and haven't spoken since.

To be fair, I had no idea he had such an Oedipus complex. When we were in high school, I didn't see how much time he spent talking to his mother because he lived with her. When we got into the dorms, he would call his mother 5-10 times a day AND write her two letters a day. As an example, I remember him going on a date that lasted two hours. When he got home, he called his mother and discussed the date for FOUR HOURS. He would literally call his mother before going down to dinner to let her know that he was going to dinner and he wouldn't be there to answer the phone if she called.

[M.D. Holloway]

Here is where I lived while an undergrad:

This pic was taken from the beach. This place was ubber creppy at night. They filmed Dark Shawdows there in the late 60's. They also made a Blue film 'Life of Johanna' in the 60's as well - I never saw it but with a women to men ratio of 14:1 I lived it often!

Here are the other 'dorms'.

[Nostril Cheese]

Required my first year. I couldnt wait to get my own place after.

That first year was pretty much a non-stop acid trip.

[porsche4life]

Where did you go to school Mike? I probably would have lived in those...

[Gogar]

She'll have like, 60+ years to "live with friends" after college.

Go to the dorm. You only get one shot at that experience.

[bivenator]

I made it 2 years in a dorm with a friend from high school as my roomie. We were more like brothers and remain so almost 20 yrs after. Dickens said it best, "these were the best of times, and the worst of times."
Lots of fun and was forced to make new friends and some enemies.
My daughter is in her first year away from home although she is a late sophomore. She opted for the apartment instead of a dorm. Community showers concerned her most. She seems to be doing OK as far as making friends, but I believe she is somewhat lonely as she bought a dog for company.
I thought the dog was a bad idea on many levels. I told my buddy that old people get dogs, college kids get laid. Of course I didn't share my wisdom with my kid.

[strupgolf]

I lived in the dorm for 3 years and loved every minute. I got married in school for the 4th year and had a house. You cant bond with others in some apartment and that leaves a lot out of the entire experience.

[Dantilla]

Dorm life is great. For a season.

Where else do you drop bowling balls several stories "just because"?
Where else do you get the annual all-campus water fight every Spring?
Where else do you learn so many practical jokes that will come in handy later in life?
Where else....... I could go on and on.....