Housing. It seems like such a simple thing in the beginning. You find a person that you click with and decide to live with them the following school year. You both look at a dorm that you would both want to live in. Maybe you and a group of friends will want to live together as well. Easy, right?
One can only wish it was this easy. In a perfect world, everyone would agree, housing would go smoothly, and there would be open spaces in the dorm everyone most wants to live in. However, it only gets more complicated the closer it comes to the date of choosing housing.
This time of the year was even worse than finals. It takes its toll on you. By the end, you feel like you’ve fought in a great war and lost. All you can do at that point is shrug your shoulders and say you gave your best effort.
A group of my friends had decided that since we had become so close over the last few months that it would be fun to try and live in the same dorm again next year. We looked at all of the dorms our campus had to offer and chose the one that was close to our current dorm. It was new and had much bigger rooms than what we were currently living in.
Well, two hours before my housing time started it all went to hell. Where we were going to live was being questioned. Even if we were going to be living together was up in the air. I wondered if I was even going to be living with my friends next year or if I would have to separate from them. It was the most stressful 24 hours of my life.
In the end, though, everything worked out. We all got into a dorm. My friends and I are in the same building, and even though it’s not where I wanted to be, I’m with my friends and that’s what counts the most. It had me thinking though, does this only happen to my friend group? Or is this happening all over the country as freshmen begin to decide where they’ll be living next year?
Turns out it does, in fact, happen to almost every friend group during the grueling time. People begin to question every single thing that you had planned out. Friendships begin to split apart. It’s like a hurricane hitting the coast unexpectedly. People scatter, fights are started, relationships that formed in the gruesome part of freshman year (also known as the first two weeks) are no longer being held together.
Then gradually, as if ever so slightly, there becomes a light at the end of the tunnel. Everyone begins to reason with one another. Compromises are made, friendships are repaired. Housing as been settled. The storm has passed, and you somehow survived the worst of it.
Housing is the most stressful thing any University could put someone through. We all had to persevere, put differences aside, and do what needed to be done.
