Living in a dorm is debatably one of the biggest changes in your regular life when going to college. You’re away from home, you’re living with someone else, you have to share a lot, and not to mention the bathrooms. To put it into words, it’s a whole new experience.

You have to share a room with another person

It really depends on your roommate. I lucked out and got a really good one who also happens to be my teammate. We’re together a lot and are really close. Living with someone else makes you much more conscious of how you live, how messy your side is, and of your little habits that you may not have even realized you had until your roommate points them out. You and your roommate will eventually become really good friends and you guys will literally share everything… and I mean everything. Seriously, “what’s mine is yours” has never been more true.

You are living around boys

I mean, unless you’re living in a single-gender dorm, you are going to be living with the opposite gender. Not gonna lie, it’s a little weird at first when you are walking to the bathroom to shower in your towel and walk past a group of guys playing ping pong on the floor. But eventually you get used to it, and when you get to know all of them and become friends it’s actually really fun.

Community showers…

I hated the idea of having to go pee next to someone on a regular basis. Or having to wear flip flops every time I wanted to take a shower. And to be completely honest, the drains on the showers get to be really gross with hair and God knows what else. But again, you get used to it and it’s not so bad after a while. Although it’s a pain when you’re in bed and have to go down the hall to brush your teeth. However, it is kind of funny to see everyone who also has an 8am class to wander into the bathroom that morning all glassy-eyed and still half asleep as they wash their face and brush their teeth.

Noise

Ok this part may make me sound like a bit of a grouch, but when you had 6:45am lifting then two classes, and you want to go back to your room and take a nap, the noise is really annoying. Imagine this: you finally get back to your room after a long morning of classes and just want to pass out. Just as you’re finally starting to fall asleep you hear, “OOOOOOO, BRO THAT WAS LIT!!!!”, followed by an increase in volume so that moderate loud rap music just became really loud rap music. You try to fall asleep again but every two minutes you here that same shouting from the people playing ping pong. Eventually you come to the conclusion that you have to cover your ears with your pillow, put in head phones, or give up your nap as a whole and settle for Netflix instead. Living in a dorm is fun, but there are all types of noise going on at all parts of the day.

You pretty much get to live with your friends

Probably the best part of living in a dorm is that you are practically living with all of your friends. You’ve got your homie of a roommate, your other besties next door, some more a few doors down, and across the common area and on the other side of the hall. You see each other probably way too much but they’re your people here at college so you stick together. They’re your go to when you’re having a great day and want to tell someone about it, or when you’re day sucks and you need to vent about it, or when you’re down to party they are right there next to you. For the good days and the bad days, the A’s and the F’s, the movie nights or party nights, they’re your homies.