August 24th, 2016
Dorm life is nothing like in the movies. It's not wonderful, it's not terrible. There are weekly floor meetings and sometimes we have game night. There are no parties in anyone's dorm room. It's relatively mundane. The mail boxes are tiny and package have to be signed out when you go to pick them up. Thankfully my dorm has a few elevators so usually there isn't much of a wait. It has a lot of floors though so sometimes it takes several minutes for them to arrive on Charlotte* and my floor. Charlotte is my roommate. We found each other on a thing that lets you try to find a roommate on your own. We found out through talking that we have a ton in common and that we have nearly the exact same major. We are both chemistry majors here, she wants to go to graduate school to work on developing drugs where I want to go to graduate school to become a pharmacist.
Mostly, things have been going great at the dorm. Currently we are in a white board Hogwarts House War with someone who is a Slytherin. Did I mention both Charlotte and I are Hufflepuffs? Walking to classes is a bit of a downer since we live in a dorm that's far from basically everything. On the bright side we're done with classes by three most days, except for Tuesday because we have an evening lab. Although the dorm room is really small, we've made the most of our space. It's pretty cozy. I have found that having little bins to keep stuff in is a great idea. I have a small bin to keep stuff for my hair in, and one of the drawers that I have as part of the dorm furniture I use for various items that I brought that are small in size, like perfume and extra contact solution.
According to our RA, resident assistant, we have to check our smoke detector each month. Having now checked it for this month, I am not looking forward to next month. I have to be the one to check it since Charlotte is so short, she's like a head shorter than me. I have to use a step stool to get to the smoke detector and even then I can barely reach it. The only other option is standing on one of the desk chairs, but they are like rocking chairs so that's really a terrible idea. Someone is gonna try it and end up knocking themselves out because it rocked back, or forwards, and they fell.
Another thing about dorm life, at least with the dorm I'm in, it could change as I get towards upperclassman housing, is that the bathroom is not in the room. You have to go out of your room and down the hall, it isn't too far from my room, to get to the bathroom. There is just one with five stalls for our entire floor of around thirty-five. The showers are also in that bathroom around the corner from the stalls. Thankfully getting a shower right when I want one as I'm trying to get ready in the morning hasn't really been a problem, nor has been not having an open bathroom stall.
So far, I'm really enjoying dorm life. We'll see how that changes when we have to do fire drills at four in the morning.
*This person's name has been changed to protect their privacy.
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Thoughts of a First Year College Student.
Non-FictionThis is simply some short pieces about my experiences at college my first year. I will not name which college I attend, any of the sorority chapters on campus, or any of the names of my professors. This is to protect the privacy of anyone who may...
