Living in an all-girls dorm for college is a real and totally different experience. There's a lot that you'd probably expect and a lot you may not at all. To enlighten you on what it's like, here's a list of experiences I had living in an all-girls dorm my first year of college:
1. Females are everywhere.
I come from a place where separating men and women isn’t done that often because it’s thought that women mellow out men and it creates a more diverse environment. Being around a lot of women is different because everyone is pretty similar in their mannerisms. You see the same people a lot and can build more of a community but you may not be close with everyone.
2. There can be cliques.
Having females together is a good thing and a bad thing. On one hand, we are respectful and can help each other and be nice. It’s generally easier to bond with your own gender instead of the opposite. However, this also means that clique-like behavior can start because of the competitive nature of humans and there still are so many differences. It’s not always bad but you may not have a “dream community” like you see in the movies.
3. Girls' dorms are as loud as you think they are.
Screaming, laughing, “oh my god” seems to be the language everyone communicates in. It gets loud but it’s fun to be surrounded by so much energy. But sometimes your dorm may not be the quietest of places unless it’s during classes or it’s generally understood that people need to be more quiet. Bring earbuds to college if you need to is all I can say.
4. Laundry is everywhere.
Fortunately, my dorm had a laundry room attached to it and it was really easy to do laundry instead of going to a separate building to do it. But doing laundry meant that your stuff could get mixed in with others if you didn’t bother to sort through clothes or your clothes would be left out if you didn’t pick them up in time. And yes, there’s a lot of underwear and bras and socks around.
5. Males still come around.
Despite the scary name of it being “all girls”, most colleges allow males to enter the building, hangout, or sleep over (with the permission of the roommate). While they’re not as “common” in this dorm, a lot come over to just hang out or go somewhere that’s cleaner or more “homey”. Besides it’s not good to not allow genders to mix and interact with each other.
6. You learn how to deal with different people.
College is a huge trial of meeting new people and making connections. Being in a single gender dorm really pushes for people to get along. Yes, your dorm may not be a close knit community, but getting older means you just have to suck up some things and get along with people, and girls generally understand this. Personally, my dorm was nice and people were courteous but we were not a community of girls who all knew each other. But being in such a specific situation helped me build social skills with my own gender besides “how’s xyz doing” and “I like your outfit, where’d you get it”. These were people I was going to live with for nine months so I had to get to know them and I met a lot of cool people I know I wouldn’t have met otherwise.
