"Living in the dorms is something you have to experience, at least for the first year," one of my high school teachers told our class. "No matter where you go, you'll never forget what the dorms taught you." In today's university system, it seems that students are anxious to escape from residence halls. From the moment that acceptance letters are opened, students start planning where they will be staying once their required time in the dorms is up. Unlike many of my peers, I made the decision to remain in a residence hall until I graduate.
My initial reason for never leaving the dorms was my strong emotional attachment that had developed by the end of my sophomore year of college. While there are a few exceptions (financial struggles, living within a certain distance to campus, etc.) students at Northern Michigan University are required to live in a residence hall for the first two years of their collegiate career. As my second year of college wound down, I came to the sudden realization that I had lived in my residence hall longer than I had ever lived in a house. The second floor of that tall brick building became a home, and I wasn't ready to leave, despite my pile of complete apartment applications.
What pushed me to stay in a residence hall was actually the appalling month that I spent living off campus the winter of my sophomore year of college. Residence halls close in between the fall and winter semesters, but because I had a full-time job in my college town, I was unable to go home for the holidays. I sublet one of my sorority sister's rooms and was excited to experience living off campus with new people. Much to my dismay, her stories about her awful roommates were true—the garbage in the kitchen was not taken out the entire month I was there; the dishes in the sink were left untouched, the refrigerator was filled with food far past its expiration date, and the homeless cat that someone took in roamed the house urinating everywhere but his litter box. A majority of my time out of work was spent sequestered in my room, as I had returned to find bizarre polyamorous situations in the living room one time too many.
I don't have any horror stories about living in residence halls. The majority of my roommates were fairly sane, laundry was free, and with the suite-style dorms at my university, I shared a bathroom with three other people as opposed to an entire floor. I found residence hall life to be very comforting, where I could surround myself with my friends and watch "American Horror Story" or lock my door to avoid the freshmen running down the halls. I've lived in the same hall for the past four years, and I know that I'll miss it terribly when graduation day comes. I've wondered what it would be like to live off-campus, but not enough to push me out of the plush twin XL mattress that I crash onto every night. I've never regretted my decision to stay in a residence hall for the entire duration of my college career, and the lessons I learned in its dimly lit halls will certainly follow me wherever I go.
