College students who live at school know that housing is no small deal; besides sleeping in your dorm, you may be studying and hanging out with friends in that same space - basically, it’s your home for the next several months (with about a month of winter break where most students go home).

As a sophomore, I now live in an on-campus townhouse with my friends - and I love it! We have so much space to hang out and we even get a kitchen where we can make our own meals. When we have friends come over, instead of being cramped in someone’s room, we can all sit around the kitchen table (with some adjustments - it’s not perfect) and eat, play a game or talk, or go to the living room and watch a movie or just hang out.

It’s a very nice living situation, especially considering that we’re only sophomores. We were reminded a couple of weeks ago that we’re very fortunate to be living in the townhouse that we are, when the students who lived here last year came back for a visit. They reminisced on the good times and told us that the townhouse we’re living in is great.

Just this past Friday, some of my housemates and I went back to our freshman dorm, Champagnat, to our floor (because that’s how most of us became friends - by meeting on our floor), for an event. As we were waiting for the elevator and when we got up to our floor, we did exactly what the juniors who had come to our house just recently had done - reflected on the good times of the previous year and marveled at the changes.

However, even with the improvements, most things didn’t change. With Champagnat Hall, whether you lived there years ago, live there now or will live there in the future, unless they’re planning on renovating or remodeling it, many things will stay the same.

1. No one calls it Champagnat - it’s Champ

Even though, if you go to the Campus Ministry meetings, Brother Frank will tell you it’s called Champagnat and it’s named to honor the French priest Marcellin Champagnat who created the Marist Brothers, students campus-wide still refer to it as Champ. While we respect the history behind the name, it’s rare to hear a student refer to Champ by its full name.

Now - and don’t get me wrong, I love Champ - but while Champ is a great dorm, there are a lot of things about Champ that aren’t quite the best, like:

2. It can get pretty loud

Living in a dorm room right next to the breezeway but on a high level floor, I could still hear students, day and night, talking and yelling. Inside Champ itself, it also gets pretty loud as well. I mean, Champ is the tallest dorm on campus and so with that number of people, the level of noise is kind of to be expected. You can hear students talking at all hours in both the lounges and in the hallways - it just can get very noisy.

3. The elevators are super annoying

It seems that almost every time you try to use the elevator, it has to stop on every single floor (that’s nine floors!), both on the way up and on the way down. Thusly, the elevators can be really slow; however, if you live on a high floor they can be really helpful for those who don’t want to walk up seven or eight or nine flights of stairs. That being said, there’s kind of an unspoken rule about using the elevators in Champ: if you live on the first, second or third floor of Champ, don’t use the elevator. Now, I’m not saying you can’t use them, but if you ride the elevator up to one of those floors, the rest of the people might grumble about that after you leave. Additionally, especially on weekends, you might find that some people partied a little too hard and used the elevator, leaving a, let’s just say surprise, for other people to find and consequently, make them decide to use the stairs instead.

4. There are so many fire drills

It seems that many people who live in Champ don’t know how to make popcorn in a microwave without burning it and thus, make the fire alarm go off. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen the flashing light in my room and heard the monotonous voice telling me to exit the building and thought, “Well, who burned the popcorn this time?” The best part is, at least last year, these fire drills usually happened late at night around 11 p.m., so people were getting ready for bed or already asleep. There was one time that the fire alarm went off at 1 a.m. - that was not fun.

5. The laundry room has some issues

Besides being messy, a bit dirty and incredibly stuffy, there are a lot of people in Champ, so unless you wash your clothes at around 3 a.m., and maybe still even then, you have to wait to use a washer/dryer. However, this was not helped by the fact that almost all of the time there were at least two washers, if not more, that were out of order at the same time.

But don’t let the bad overshadow the good; there are a lot of awesome things about Champ, like:

6. Meeting plenty of friendly people in the elevator

There’s something about cramming as many people as can humanly fit into a tiny elevator and groaning collectively as it stops on every single floor that bonds people. After all, misery does love company and this mutual experience provides plenty of that. Plus, as you settle into a routine, you meet the same people on the elevator week after week, especially on the way to class, and can slowly become acquainted.

7. Sitting in the lounge and watching all the activity

The lounge on our floor was always bustling with activity - people doing homework and group projects and just hanging out. It’s a great place to be to soak in all the activity and excitement (and sometimes stress) of a college dorm. It’s also a fun place to be on the weekends where you can watch people as they come back from the parties and bars, really loud and sometimes, really drunk!

8. Being informed of all the events happening on campus

Between the RAs constantly posting helpful reminders of all events, especially Champ specific ones, near the elevators, and the big posters in the Breezeway entrance, you always in the know about the movies they’ll be showing in the Student Center, comedians and magicians that’ll be performing and other events that’ll be going on. Since you have to walk by them almost every day to get anywhere, you’re always up-to-date on what’s going on around campus.

9. Being connected to the Student Center

This is what I miss the most about Champ, to be honest. Everything else, like meeting people and knowing what’s going on was awesome, too, but being connected to the Student Center came in really handy. It was nice being able to quickly walk to the post office whenever I needed to, where it just took a few minutes (not including the elevator ride) to basically run downstairs and grab my mail, then run back upstairs, instead of having to go outside and walk there. The connection to the bookstore was also really helpful, especially during the first week or two of the semester when I had no idea that I would be buying so many textbooks and had to make several runs to the bookstore. The most important and best part about being connected to the Student Center though, was that it was great not having to bundle up and leave the (relative) warmth of the indoors during the winter, to go to the dining hall to get food. Whenever my friends and I wanted to grab lunch or dinner, we’d just meet up and head down, with no need to layer up and prepare for the cold outdoors. The convenience of the Cab was nice too, in case I wanted to grab a quick meal or craved a midnight snack.