Upon arrival at school, every eager freshman, ready to hatch out of their baby eagle shell and blossom into a full born Eagle, has an abundance of plans they wish to execute on their first lap at FGCU. Whether its streaking through the dorms, catching an STD the first week of school or throwing a kegger in your 4x4 dorm room, freshmen always have a bucket list. Many of these are very achievable and not lofty goals—especially the STD goal, FGCU has one of the highest STD rates amongst schools nationally. You can just walk out of your dorm and BAM you’re hit with crabs the first day of college. Freshman year in the dorms is an experience every college student should have. Living in the dorms is much like pledging an orginization, the most fun you’ll have that you’ll never want to experience again, and that’s just how my freshman year in the dorms went. All of the horrible, life changing, near-death experiences I encountered living in my dorm I wouldn’t trade in for all of King Midas' silver, but I would hang from a building strung up by my water balloons than live in the campus dorms once more.
At my highly academically-inclined school FGCU, they have a beautiful array of dorms called South Village Housing which are broken into many different categories: Palmetto, Everglades, Osprey and some other nature-based names. These are fantastic dorms with two rooms, kitchens, a second walk to the dining hall, athletic fields and a luxurious pool right outside your dorm room. Then there’s North Lake, the butthole of FGCU dorms. My freshman year, I did not get drafted by the South Village committee and was sentenced 1-year minimum to North Lake Village with three other inmates. With a twin size hard-as-tits mattresses and paper thin walls, you can kiss a good night sleep goodbye. I lived in a North Lake dorm, rightfully named C9, and it was truthfully the worst year of my life. For all of you freshmen, incoming freshmen or fifth-year seniors who wake up in the campus dorms, here’s a quick guide and tips to make your dorm life not a complete shit show.
Warnings!
1. Residential Assistant
All of those plans, goals and dreams you envisioned of throwing a 200-person kegger in your dorm are quickly put to a halt on the first day when your residential assistant reads the guidelines and rules of living in a dorm. Residential assistants, otherwise known as RAs, are basically your parents for your first year of school but, in the grand scheme of things, have little to no power. RAs are a lot like the lottery, you either strike gold or you bust. Thankfully my roommates and I struck the gold mine and had one of the coolest RAs my freshman year. We would be able to throw parties, make noise, drink the devils juice and pretty much do as we please. The only problem was, she went out a lot, so when she left, another RA would fill in for her. This replacement RA, to put it plainly, ruined my freshman year. In my year tenure with the fill-in RA, four alcohol violations were handed down to me and I was one shy of getting the ole boot on the street evidently. These violations required community service, seminars and sit-down meetings with the head of housing. If you’re going to drink in the dorms, which you are, be smart and do it quietly instead of cramming half your fraternity into a 4x4 confined dorm. To my old RA, not the replacement, you were the best, thanks for letting us get away with everything! Below is a violation I received a few days before Valentines day in the winter of 2012.
2. Residential Violations
As stated earlier, I received a handful of alcohol-based violations. Those were not the only ones I received. You can also receive health violations, which evidently was newly implanted the year North Lake took my roommates and me in. Either due to complaints from residing residents, the fact that the whole building reeked of rotten food, puke and beer or that raccoons and other animals were hanging around the building, our room specifically… I came home and found a health violation taped on the door on two separate occasions. Some of our neighbors went so far as to post nasty notes and letters on our dorm door to encourage us to act like civilized human beings rather than a bunch of depraved barbarians. We even had an email sent out about someone dumping excess grease into the courtyard that was attracting coyotes and bobcats. We were automatically blamed. These violations are real, keep this in mind youngins’.
3. Residential Walk-through
Notice a trend here? Everything in the dorms involve the RA. Yes, that’s right. there is an end of the year walk-through where all of your damages are excessed. If you read my last article, regarding my walk-through of my off-campus housing and the $6,000 that came with it, you know how this story ends. I wish I could tell you I walked out of that dorm scot-free and they found no damages, but that just wouldn’t be true. Despite our efforts to cover up holes in the wall, stained rooms, broken items and just an all-around year of trashing the room, the clock had struck midnight and Cinderella story of getting away with destroying our dorm was over. Mainly due to the fact somebody had dove head first into the oven, shattering it in the action, we owed around $1,100. Be aware you silly little rabbits, these RA’s who perform the walk-through know what they are doing, and they will catch you.
TIPS!
1. Don't buy a beer pong table.
Not only with this draw further attention to all the noise you have been making, you don’t need one. North Lake is equipped with sliding door mirrors in all of the rooms. Slide one on those off, lay it on top of two chairs and you have yourself a regulation size beer pong table. Make sure to wash off all the beer pong stains on it before the walk through. See that sliding door beside all the trash, use that.
2. Don't keep your empty liquor bottles.
A popular hobby of many freshmen is to keep their empty liquor bottles to show off as a prize to the world to let them know they do in fact drink alcohol. You’re in college, everyone knows you drink. Those souvenir bottles will be seen by RAs during the monthly reviews of rooms or random visits due to noise complaints. My roommates and I learned this the hard way. Also don’t staple beer boxes to the wall for wallpaper like I did, it causes damages and you’ll be asked to take them down every time an RA stops by.
3. Sleeping arrangements.
If you have a significant other, do not have them sleep over. Those terrible, toddler-size mattresses are built for hobbits and not people. It doesn’t fit one comfortably, it certainly doesn’t fit two.
4. Take out the trash.
This was a biggie for my roommates and I. We were very good about taking our trash out…once every two months we would haul 30 plus bags of what can best be described as shit, down to the dumpster. This led to both our health violations.
Living in the dorms is an experience like none other, something I would never do again nor am I allowed to do either. Heed my words youngins, take care of your dorm.
