Making the Choice: Living in a Dorm, Apartment or at Home
If you are a student entering college as a freshman, you may have a decision to make about housing. Depending on your school, you may have options for a dorm, an apartment or for living at home (if your school is close enough for your to commute). (more…)
Your wheels are your freedom. Your wheels are what gets you around. So why not take them to school with you? Here are a few questions you might consider before you make that decision: (more…)
In the past five to ten years, most college campuses have instituted stricter security policies and protection for their students and faculty. Knowing your school security policies, where to find the security officers on campus, and if you have ‘blue light’ boxes around the campus where you can call in an emergency are just a few of the ways you can protect yourself. (more…)
If you never found it necessary to clean your room at home, you may not have noticed that your parents tried to keep things from piling up and kept your room reasonably accessible. Now you are living with one or more other slobs and you suddenly have no idea what you are supposed (more…)
Most colleges and universities have strict rules about keeping pets in your dorm room. In short, most colleges do not allow you to keep pets in your dorm room. But in the past five or six years, some schools have loosened the rules to include certain pets. (more…)
You took great pains to select your roommate and now you are happily looking forward to your time together in your shared dorm room. But, relationships are not easy. There are things you can’t tell about a person on paper or by going out with them for a piece of pizza. If you live together day in and day out, through the stress of exams, failed love affairs and homesickness, you are likely to have some friction. (more…)
Every college does its best to screen and appoint resident advisors (RAs) for each dorm. Sometimes the school fails spectacularly and sometimes the students have an RA who can help them get anchored in school, resolve conflict in the dorm and keep the general peace and order in dorm life. The best RAs are friends, confidantes and good ‘superintendents’ who can organize, manage and remain objective. (more…)
Do the basics of laundry elude you? Are you sorry you weren’t paying attention when mom tried to teach you how to sort your clothes and how much detergent to use? You will be after your tidy whities turn pink for the first time and the guys in the common bathroom laugh you out the door. Don’t worry. Laundry really isn’t so hard. (more…)
If you are lucky enough to have a friend who is going to the same school, you may have a built-in roommate. For the rest of you college students, the idea of rooming with a complete stranger is probably a little overwhelming. Today’s colleges and universities have gotten wiser about managing this process and they will usually (more…)
Whether you are just sick and tired of cafeteria food, studying for an exam, or you just feel like having a snack, it is nice to be able to cook a little something in your dorm room on occasion. If you want to consider this option, you first need to check with the Office of Residential Life or your Residence Advisor (RA) to understand whether you can keep a hot plate or microwave in your room, or if there is a regular stove in the lounge of your dorm. Do not bring in any forbidden items, because if you start a fire, you may be held responsible. (more…)