Eighty one days was all it took for me to realize that dorm life is something else.
1. You have to use communal bathrooms. Let’s just be real; I think this is the most obvious. You can learn and see so many weird and disgusting things about girls by sharing a bathroom with 50+ of them. One time I watched a girl walk out of a stall and in to the hallway, and proceed to grab her boyfriend’s hand. She never washed hers. Or sometimes you go into the bathroom in the middle of a Saturday night and catch your friendly neighborhood drunkenly throwing up… everywhere. My favorite is when a girl comes in the bathroom and opens the windows when it’s freezing while you’re showering just so she can straighten her hair without getting hot.
2. You have to wear shower shoes. It’s almost like you don’t realize how awful it is to shower with your shoes on until you go home for a weekend and shower in your own home, then come back to your dorm only to face the horror all over again.
3. There’s hair everywhere. There’s hair stuck on the shower walls. There’s clumps of hair balls all over the floor of your room. There’s hair in the bathroom sinks and all over the counters. The reality is we’re girls and we shed worse than dogs. It's not all bad, though: sometimes, you can even play this really fun game called “Whose Hair is This?” when you find hair in your room that’s neither yours or your roommate’s hair color.
4. There are boys everywhere you go. They’re everywhere, all of the time. The best part is that you have to take your clothes to the shower with you because there’s a 100 percent chance there will be a hall full of boys when you walk out in your towel. If you’re really lucky, your roommate will have a serious boyfriend who will basically be your roommate, too.
5. You have to walk everywhere. You want food? Walk. You need to go to class? Walk. You need anything other than your bed or a toilet? Walk.
6. The laundry rooms are no fun. First, you have to lug your laundry up and down the steps, then dig for some quarters to pay for it (we’re broke college kids, you know?). And maybe it’s just me, but my clothes never feel as clean afterwards as they do when I use my laundry machine at home. Oh, and here's a bonus: the floors are usually flooded so your clothes end up wet and dirty all over again.
Dorm life isn’t all so bad, though…
1. Your roommate just might turn out to be your friend, too. Always having someone to talk to at midnight when you just can’t quit thinking is always nice (or when your neighbor is still being loud at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday). Plus your closet kind of doubles considering it’s part of the roommate code to share clothes, right?
2. There are always people around. If you’re a social butterfly like me, then you probably love the fact that living in a dorm means all you have to do is walk out into the hall and it’s almost a guarantee that someone is out there to talk to you. You’re never bored because there’s always people within mere steps to hang out 24/7.
3. All of the different kinds of people make things interesting… in a good way. There’s a girl across the hall from me that reads palms and there’s another one down the hall that once made a dress completely out of birthday cards (I’ve seen pictures; it’s real). If I hadn’t opted to live in a dorm, I would’ve never met all these cool, crazy people and had all of these eye-opening experiences.
4. The freedom isn’t so bad either. Sure, you might miss your mom’s home cooking or having your dad around to pick on you, but not having to tell someone where you are at all times isn’t so bad. It’s a lot easier to keep your personal life private when you have some space and freedom to do what you want (within reason, of course).
5. It’s easy to find something to do if you’re bored. Living on campus means it’s easy for you to find out what’s going on. Between tailgating, social gatherings, and all of the clubs and activities to participate in, you can almost always find something to do.
6. It’s an experience like no other. Ten years from now, I bet some of my best college stories will come from having lived the dorm life.
