Living on campus is a great experience that all students in college should get to enjoy; however, that doesn't mean you aren't going to struggle at one time or another. If you go to Bowling Green State University, you are likely to face these 24 struggles while living on campus:
1. BGSU Refund
It's always nice when you get your BGSU Refund... When it comes in on time. Sometimes it takes up to 2 weeks or even longer to get your refund back, and this can be a huge setback when you use your refund to help pay for your textbooks and access codes.
2. Canvas Grades
Nothing is more stressful than your grades.. Except when your teachers don't keep up with Canvas. Sure, you may be able to see what grades you got on your online homework or paperwork, but it doesn't help when you can't see your overall grade. Our professors tell us constantly to use Canvas, but should they expect us to when they don't?
3. Construction
Campus is always under some kind of construction or repair, but the worst part is when you are in a hurry to class, a meeting, or work, and you encounter some construction you had no idea was happening.
4. Class Scheduling
The first few times you schedule classes is the worst. Chances are you didn't get the classes you wanted, or the times were outrageous. We just have to hope that the next semester will be better.
5. Dining Hall Lines
The dining hall food is already terrible, and now we have to stand in line and starve while we wait for it. Avoiding busy times at the dining hall is hard, especially when our schedules are crappy. Sometimes the best thing we can do is just grab something small to snack on while we wait.
6. Dining Hall Menu
Sometimes the menus at the Oaks and Carillon are on point, but most the time its a mix between normal foods with a weird twist or an attempt of something fancy that just turned into a complete disaster. Moral of the story, check the menu before you go to the dining halls, or take the risk of getting a mouthful of something gross.
7. Dorm Bathrooms
You would think by this time in our lives, we would know how to flush the toilet and clean up after ourselves. If you live on campus and use a community restroom, you know the struggle of living with gross people. Nothing is more disgusting than seeing a puddle of pee or god knows what on the toilet seat or floor, or seeing chunks of what may be food or throw up in the sink. And let's not get started on the clumps of hair in the shower. Basically, we wish our bathrooms were actually clean, like the picture above.
8. Exam Schedules
BGSU, do you purposely schedule our classes so we are forced to stay all week? Life would be so much easier if we could just get exams done and over with. Who wants to stress for a full week? Definitely not me.
9. Heat
At the beginning of the fall semester, especially if you live in a dorm without air conditioning, dealing with the heat is the worst. Its hard to find any way to keep cool, and you can expect to take at least 2 showers a day.
10. Laundry
Finding a washer and dryer for your clothes or sheets is hard in the bigger dorms. There is a limited amount of washers and dryers available, not to mention that some people just leave their clothes idle in the washer or dryer. I don't want to touch someone else's wet clothes, and I certainly don't want to have to wait two hours for an open dryer. And if you are one of those people, be cautious of leaving your clothes in there to long. Someone may take your clothes out and move them, leading to either wet and moldy clothes or articles of clothing going missing.
11. Lot 12
If you have a car, you know how big of a pain going to Lot 12 is. The chances of finding a parking spot close to the front is sometimes impossible, and sometimes when you do find a spot, there is an asshole that bets you to it. And if you don't want to park all the way in the back, you may be spending a large amount of time doing circles in the parking lot until someone leaves. That's time and money you could be spending doing other things.
12. Meal Plans
Sometimes, the meal plan just isn't enough. Depending on how much you eat, how often you eat, and what meal plan you were able to afford, you may use up your meal plan completely before reaching the end of the semester. This leads to you bumming swipes off of your friends or spending your own money to feed yourself. Not to mention, we can only use our Falcon Dollars on campus, which limits us to pizza, sandwiches, and Starbucks. We are college students; we are broke and we need to eat.
13. Neighbors
When living in the residence halls, nothing guarantees that all the people you live near will be friendly. You may have one year where you are friends with everyone, and the next you may be stuck in a hall with complete idiots or people that you haven't ever met before because they are never around.
14. Ordering Textbooks
Getting textbooks was so much easier when you could find them online for cheap or they were accessible through the on-campus bookstore. Now that we have Falcon Outfitters, we no longer have a bookstore where you can walk in and leave with a book a few minutes later. We have to wait weeks upon weeks for our books, and sometimes this is an issue when there is required reading or homework assignments that require the books. Not to mention, we can't find cheap books online anymore because our professors decided to start using books that are only available for purchase through BGSU, or another source online.
15. Orientation Day
Orientation Day is an exciting time for high-school students to come on campus and check out BGSU. However, now that we are students, Orientation Day is one of the worst days of our lives. It's hard to go into dining halls or the Union for lunch or to get to class with everyone here, not to mention the tours think they own the place and don't make room for us on the sidewalk, forcing us to walk in the grass or on the street, or they block the entire hallways when we are trying to get to class. Yes, we were there once, and it's not that we aren't looking forward to welcoming the new Falcons, but we pay to live on campus, is it too much to ask for a little respect when visiting?
16. Outtakes
Outtakes is sometimes a better option than going to the dining halls or the Union, but it's not that much better. You may go to one Outtakes that offers Meal Swipes and the next one won't. The food selection is slim, and not all the foods are available at all the Outtakes. Depending on where you live, they may be in inconvenient locations, and during holidays, they close early or aren't even open.
17. Parking During School Hours
When you have a heavy load to take to your car during school hours, there is no way you are taking multiple trips all the way out to Lot 12, and taking the shuttle way be difficult if your bag is heavy, or your hands are full. So, you decide to take the risk of pulling up to the dorm, which means you have to be fast, because if you aren't, parking services is going to sweep in and give you a ticket.
18. Parking Tickets
The Parking Services are very good at their job. If you leave your car at the wrong place and wrong time, for even just a minute, you will get a ticket. And tickets definitely are not cheap.
19. Quiet Hours
Everyone has that one person in their hall that can't follow quiet hours. You can expect screaming and running down the hallway, or possibly banging on the wall or loud laughter from the room beside you, making it impossible to sleep. Or, on the flipside, you enjoy staying up late with your friends, so you have a hard time being quiet. But if you aren't cautious, there is a big chance you could get written up, and trust me, that is not fun.
20. Resident Advisors
If you have a good Resident Advisor, consider yourself lucky. Although it is the RA's job to keep an eye on you and make you feel more comfortable with being on campus, especially during your first semester, a lot of the RA's are only in it for the free housing, free meal plan, and to have their own room. RA's that are actually good at their job are hard to come by, so don't take them for granted.
21. Room Numbers
BGSU's buildings have some really weird room number arrangements. You may be walking down the hallway and see 110 one second and 1002 the next, or you may find yourself in a situation where the room number doesn't even exist. Make sure that if you have a class in a building that you are unfamiliar with, that you check it out before class. The worst thing you can do is walk into the class late on the first day and be chewed out by the professor because you had no idea where the room was.
22. Streaming
One of the best things about having your own room is having your own TV that you don't have to share with anyone (except for your roommate). But the downside to having a TV and cable on-campus is the inconsistency of TV channels, and whether the Resident Life Media WiFi is working. One year you may be able to get 100+ channels, and the next you may be down to 15.
23. WiFi
You know the pain of having terrible WiFi when your data bill reaches it's limit or you have a last minute assignment to do and your device won't connect. Unfortunately, unless you know the WiFi hot-spots, this isn't a problem that can be fixed. Although the WiFi has seemed to improve the past few semesters,
24. Wind
During the late fall and early spring semesters, you need to bundle up and take on one of the worst winds any student at BGSU will ever experience. Campus is like a wind tunnel, and being at the wrong place at the wrong time can cause you to walk in place or even fall over.
