The ABCs of Dorm Life

I’ve lived in the Quad for three years now, two as a resident, one as an RA. During my freshman and sophomore years, I tried to be an active member here – I hung out in lobbies, I met people, I went to events. By the end of each year, I knew a substantial portion of the community by face, major, and general personality, if not always by name. This year, on the administrative side, I’ve learned a lot about what it takes to make dorm life work. Having dedicated this much time to a single building and the people in it, I feel like I should have plenty to say about my experiences here. Some of it is common sense and some of it is probably truer for me than for anyone else, but I’d like to think that some of my musings are worthwhile enough to pass on.

Friends

There’s a period of about two weeks at the beginning of every school year when everyone is open to meeting new people. Take advantage of it. Leave your door open, meet all your neighbors, ask the girl in the lobby what book she’s reading, ask if you can tag along when you see a group going to dinner. No one knows anyone, so people are much more willing than usual to reciprocate any kind of effort that you make. The more seeds you plant at the beginning of the year, the more relationships you can potentially have later. You can be “that cool guy that I had dinner with that one time, who I always meant to get to know better” to as many people as you want. Once this window of opportunity closes up, trying to make friends with a stranger is just as awkward as it is in real life. Even if you and your next door neighbors and the guys across the hall form a tight group early on, people start showing their true colors around October or November, and you’ll realize that at least a couple of them are douchebags. You’ll want to branch out and make a new circle of friends, and it can happen, but it’s not nearly as easy as it would have been if you hadn’t closed yourself off early on.

Roommates

The best part of my RA job, bar none, is that I get my own room. One of my favorite feelings in the world is waking up in the morning behind a locked door and dozing for hours, knowing that people can’t bother me unless I let them. Most residents aren’t afforded this privilege. Dealing with roommates is one of the classic college issues that most incoming freshmen are worried about, and there’s not really a correct answer to this one. Sometimes it works out great – one of my best friends went potluck her freshman year and ended up living with the girl for all four years of college, two in the dorm, two in an apartment. Sometimes it’s not so great – insert any number of roommate horror stories that you’ve heard here.

Your roommate is the person that you’re going to spend the most time with over the next year. As such, try to give each other as much space as possible. If you have the choice of studying in your room or at the library, choose the library every once in a while. Go over to your friend’s place instead of inviting him over to yours. Kill time outside or in one of the lobbies or at Starbucks; don’t sit at your desk and play Flash games for hours at a time. Don’t be that guy who never leaves the room except to eat and go to class. If your roommate notices that you’re making an effort to give him privacy, he’ll reciprocate. Privacy is very, very hard to come by, and it’s very, very precious. The first thing I used to do at the beginning of each semester was to look at my roommate’s class schedule to see when I knew he’d be out of the room. That was my naked time, and it was glorious. The point is, stay out of each other’s hair and in each other’s good graces as long as you can. A time will come (oh, yes, it will come) when you want nothing more than to find/replace the word “and” with the word “penis” in his paper that’s worth 50% of his final grade. Ignore it. Outward hostility, especially with three months left to go, is too stressful. It's not that your roommate's a bad guy; neither of mine were, by a long shot. It's just that he's always there.

Pianos

This one is small but important. One of your dorm’s lobbies is probably going to have a piano for student use. Let’s say that piano hours are from ten in the morning through midnight. Yes, technically, you’re allowed to sit down at 10:01 on a Saturday morning and start pounding out Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. Don’t. Please, please don’t. Don’t sit down to play when there are more than ten other people in the room. Don’t play scales for half an hour, up and down, over and over. Don’t practice the same two measures twenty times in a row (don’t laugh, I’ve heard it happen). Don’t think that struggling through a vague approximation of the chords to “The Scientist” is going to get you laid. And, most importantly of all, no matter how good you are, don’t think that anyone is going to be impressed. We’re cynical college kids. Nothing impresses cynical college kids.

The RA

First of all, let me explain that the RA gig is a pretty sweet deal. We get free room and board and all that, but more importantly, it’s to a graduating college student’s resume what the Eagle Scout Award is to a high-schooler’s. Leadership experience? Check. Conflict management? Check. Public speaking? Check. Working as a member of a team? Check. The list goes on. I’d highly recommend applying for the job if you get the opportunity. Companies fall all over themselves to hire someone with this much voluntary community service, in a very literal sense of the term. It’s a lot of work, but it’s already started paying off for me.

The most important thing to understand about RAs is that everyone has a boss. With the occasional exception, we’re not power-tripping sadists who write people up (or, in DHFS lingo, “document incidents”) and dump hundreds of dollars’ worth of alcohol down the drain for kicks. We’re just trying to keep the peace and do our jobs. If there’s a party going on and I let it slide, my boss is going to ask me why I haven’t done anything about the half-dozen noise complaints I’ve received. I’m not particularly inclined to put my job on the line for something as inconsequential as a dorm-room kegger.

And if you honestly believe that no one can tell what you’re doing behind these paper-thin walls, you’re kidding yourself. Maybe your next-door neighbor just wants to crash for sixteen straight hours after an all-nighter. Robbing a college student of sleep is a cardinal sin. You’re affecting more people than you think you are. Yes, you can pack fifteen people into your tiny dorm room, blast music, and drink yourselves sick, but is that really the most fun thing you can think of to do on a Friday night? In Austin? Really? And while we’re on this topic…

Alcohol

I would highly advise that your first drinking experience not be during your first weekend of college. As cool as your new friends are, and as well as you’re getting along, and as much as you know you’re all gonna be best buddies for the next four years, in the end, they’re the new neighbors that moved in three days ago. Odds are good that they’re more concerned with having a good time themselves than with baby-sitting you. They’re not gonna watch how much you’re drinking, they’re not gonna tell you to take it easy for a while, they’re not gonna suggest that you sit this round out, get some water. They just won’t care that much, and it’s not their job to, because if you don’t know what you can and can’t handle, you’re already miles behind. If you’re going to drink in college (and let’s face it, you probably will), know what you’re doing in advance. People who partied in high school won’t have a problem. People who didn’t, get together with a couple of friends over the summer, designate someone to stay sober, and experiment. Seriously. Save yourself the embarrassment.

In Conclusion

I’m going to miss the Quad. I really am. You know how sometimes, you’re at a party, and you suddenly realize that all your friends left while you were on the back porch chatting up the cute girl who turns out to have a boyfriend, and you’re not ready to call it a night, but you don’t know anyone at the party anymore, and that’s kind of awkward, so you drive home and watch a couple South Park reruns on your computer before going to bed? I suspect that’s the feeling that I’m going to have every day next year when I finish class, the resignation to spending the rest of the day in the netherworld that is my West Campus apartment. I’m going to miss knowing everyone. I’m going to miss reading by the statue. I’m going to miss LOST parties in the Q. I’m going to miss Tuesday Night Midnight iPod dancing. I’m going to miss chatting with Rey (the night guy with the beard) till four in the morning ‘cause he’s there and I’m not tired. I’m going to miss that designated spot where my group of friends meets every night without fail to hang out and pretend to do homework.

Dorm life has its drawbacks (i.e., sharing your bathroom with fifty-five other dudes and not being allowed to have friends over past 11:30), but there’s nothing else like it at any point in your life. You have to enjoy it while you can, because once it’s gone, you can never get it back.