Dorm life is necessary and convenient for first-year students
It was 11:30 p.m. and I was ready for bed, excited for my first night of getting 8 hours of sleep ever since the start of college. Then I heard a voice shouting my name, “We need you! It’s an emergency!”
Amanda Vu
It turned out that a friend of mine was experiencing severe stomach pain and needed to go to the Emergency Room. Despite the late hour and the strong wind blowing outside, four of us rushed to my car and sped to the hospital.
After staying in the hospital for four hours straight, I had nothing better to do than think about all the valuable lessons dorm life has taught me. Like other students with financial struggles, I once wished the college system would just allow all freshmen to live off campus for the sake of saving money, rather than forcing us to spend excessive amounts of money to live in a dorm. But just a few weeks into the school year, I realized the experience was worth every penny.
The entire purpose of living on campus and having a meal plan is to leave students a spare hour or two on their daily timetable to be productive or to simply have fun, instead of cooking or worrying about what to prepare for dinner. If there is a need to bake some cupcakes or experiment with pots and pans, each dorm is supplemented with a kitchen to fulfill any students’ eating needs.
Residing in a dorm also makes college life more convenient with the available facilities. The computers from each dorm have engineering-specific programs so students can do homework without having to purchase the program for their own laptops. Additionally, access to printers becomes handy when students need to print off a paper at 4 a.m. — after the library is closed.
But nothing tops the social connections students create while living with each other on campus. Roommates do not just coexist. They become best friends — nicknamed “roomies” — or even “homies,” if they end up renting a house together after college.
In a dorm, knowledgeable floor neighbors become mentors when it comes to homework struggles. The whole hall soon becomes a little family, with sisters dressing up for a girls’ night-out and brothers gathering to practice for a competitive intramural game.
Of course, people cannot stay in dorm rooms for the rest of their lives. It is hard to resist feeding off of prepaid meal plans at Bob’s Place every day and having Resident Assistants to keep down the chaos that comes with living in close quarters.
As a first-year student — unfamiliar to the new town and the new schooling system — I have experienced the dramatic and rapid change that is coming to college. Living in a dorm allows students to be surrounded by classmates who are experiencing the same situation. Those who live in dorms understand each other’s struggles and are able to help themselves slowly adapt to the new life.
I drove my friend back from the hospital and thought to myself, “If I did live off-campus by myself as expected, who would help me out if I got seriously injured? Probably no one.”
Amanda Vu can be reached at [email protected]